Aaron Bergman's tweets, November 2024
Every public tweet, reply, quote tweet and retweet that Aaron Bergman (@AaronBergman18 on X, formerly Twitter) posted in November 2024 and has not deleted: 354 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: October 2024. Next month: December 2024.
Friday, November 1, 2024
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 12:46 UTC · 4 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): I'm at EAG Boston this weekend and have the world's only physical copy of Derek Parfit: The Board Game with me! DM me or send me a message on swapcard if you'd like to play!
(quoting @SpacedOutMatt: Presenting the long-awaited release of Derek Parfit: The Board Game! A spin on the classic deckbuilding game Dominion, players in DPTBG compete to maximize the good under Parfit's Triple Theory by conducting philosophical research and taking action to help the world)
Hell no ❤️
Reply to @hot_girl_spring, 13:48 UTC · 62 likes
⁎⁺˳✧༚ 𝚗𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚒 🎀💛💙🇺🇦💙💛 (@hot_girl_spring): I really dislike how so many adults are "friends" with children in tech twitter
they're children... if you were "friends" irl their parents would beat you up, for hood reasons
Old friend: I consent
Young friend: I consent (to friendship!)
Nanami: I don’t!
Reply to @notanastronomer, 14:11 UTC · 8 likes
Lauren Gilbert (@notanastronomer): if anyone has ever wondered if I have always been Like This, I’ve just remembered my fifth grade teacher told me that she could see me working at a DC think tank someday
I was 11
Lol my first grade teacher told my parents I acted like a 40 year old man
Reply to @alexalbert__, 17:20 UTC · 3 likes
Alex Albert (@alexalbert__): It's a big day for Claude's PDF capabilities.
We're rolling out visual PDF support across claude dot ai and the Anthropic API.
Let me explain:
Ooh, I’m super curious about this
Tweet, 21:25 UTC · 28 likes
I’m in Boston NOT for EAG (it’s a bit of a story) but I am near the convention center and staying nearby for the weekend in case your 1-1 stands you up
DM me if you’re interested in saying hi
Thread, continued, 21:25 UTC · 6 likes
My infosec standards are just barely high enough to avoid simply posting my current precise location on the public internet
Thread, continued, 21:27 UTC · 4 likes
You should also definitely tell me all the gossip you hear
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Reply to @wordgirlfriend, 01:45 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @wordgirlfriend is no longer available.)
@inesferhumi @pearl_please
Tweet, 02:02 UTC · 36 likes
The reposting of my own content will continue until animal welfare improves
Reply to @inesferhumi, 11:24 UTC · 3 likes
Inés (@inesferhumi): @AaronBergman18 @derelictvessel @pearl_please We literally almost dressed up as this for halloween
Next year
Reply to @ohwizenedtortle, 12:35 UTC · 2 likes
oh dandy lion🔸 (@ohwizenedtortle): @AaronBergman18 @inesferhumi @derelictvessel @pearl_please You and me Aaron
Who is who
Reply to @ohwizenedtortle, 12:40 UTC · 2 likes
oh dandy lion🔸 (@ohwizenedtortle): @AaronBergman18 @inesferhumi @derelictvessel @pearl_please Let's let the people decide
👀
Reply to @AndyMasley, 14:20 UTC · 7 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): @GjMcGowan I feel icky about being on Twitter with Elon’s behavior so probably can’t accept the money 😭
Andy take his money
Giving him free ad views is not much of a protest
Tweet, 14:24 UTC · 7 likes
Does anyone have takes on how worried I should be about aluminum antiperspirant
Quote tweet, 14:41 UTC · 14 likes
I feel like people systematically underrate both the utility and overall importance of (generative) AI because they naturally use it in the domains they’re best at, and separately the best humans in the world at some task have disproportionate influence
Quoting Adi Polak (@AdiPolak): AI is probably not going to replace you
Reply to @AaronEstel, 15:28 UTC · 3 likes
Aaron (@AaronEstel): @AaronBergman18 it's not the aluminum you should be worried about
https://x.com/forshaper/status/1305731457193619457?t=USVRZ6oWvli9YKppOqvs_g&s=19
I have tried not showering and just don’t think it’s for me lol
Quote tweet, 16:08 UTC · 76 likes
Serious question: what public figures (broadly construed) are:
- conservative
- smart
- not a midwit/populist
- not religious, politically
- not libertarian as a fundamental guiding principle (tbc I have some respect for this, just want to separate it out)
- well-intentioned
Quoting Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil): About an hour into the Rogan interview, J.D. suggests that Bill Gates is "getting rich" off of his philanthropies, but I don't think there's anything to this.
It sounds like he's just saying something that's probably false since Gates is a known and easy target.
Thread, continued, 16:14 UTC · 17 likes
Claude says @davidfrum @peterthiel and @tylercowen
Thread, continued, 16:16 UTC · 14 likes
4o says a somewhat surprisingly totally different set:
- Douglas Murray
- Niall Ferguson
- Andrew Sullivan
- Jonathan Haidt
Tweet, 20:18 UTC · 18 likes
HUGE day for 5 year old boys
(video, plays on X)
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Reply to @NoContextBrits, 15:17 UTC · 1 like
No Context Brits (@NoContextBrits):
@livgorton
Monday, November 4, 2024
Tweet, 03:40 UTC · 82 likes
> introduce myself as Aaron
> talk for another 10 minutes
> OH YOURE AARON BERGMAN
Allegedly people know me from twitter, absolutely wild
Thread, continued, 03:42 UTC · 7 likes
If the person from the above interaction is reading this, hello and it was nice to meet you
Quote tweet, 04:01 UTC · 28 likes
If you haven’t voted already, and you’re in a safe blue state (which you probably are), you should do this
Quoting Linch (@LinchZhang): Don't spend your last 36 hours before the election reading tea leaves. Instead, go to http://SwapYourVote.org and do something active to decrease the odds of a Trump win! <3 <3 <3
Thread, continued, 04:01 UTC · 6 likes
I will be voting Green this election
Reply to @NathanpmYoung, 16:21 UTC · 6 likes
Nathan 🔎 (@NathanpmYoung): I usually dislike when people say “we should see each other more often”.
We don’t see each other more often because we don’t prioritise it. And usually we aren’t interested in fixing that. And that’s okay.
I disagree, given that someone says this, to me it’s probably true
Tweet, 16:59 UTC · 20 likes
Said to me irl: “I understood you the first time, you don’t need to do your stupid fucking equations”
Tweet, 17:26 UTC · 9 likes
AI might be the fan that gets hit by the shit of incorrect moral philosophy
Oppression, freedom, justice, etc. might be reasonable approximations of human welfare. In fact, I think they generally are…
Thread, continued, 17:26 UTC · 7 likes
But they’re not fundamentally the thing that matters, and they can easily come apart from AI suffering—probably in the sense of being ~orthogonal, not necessarily in opposition, but that can be pretty bad if it’s the main thing you care about (as some in the AI space appreciate)
Tweet, 17:26 UTC · 1 like
To name names a bit I think @dwarkesh_sp often makes this mistake
Thread, continued, 17:32 UTC · 3 likes
This seems especially true in the case of freedom (and related terms like slavery) specifically
Reply to @NoahTopper, 17:33 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 @dwarkesh_sp you should have him on pigeon hour to discuss
I’m not sure if this is like a core/strong view of his - seems more like a casual (but still potentially bad) mistake to me based on listening
Reply to @timfduffy, 20:02 UTC · 3 likes
Tim Duffy (@timfduffy): @AaronBergman18 what a rude thing to say I would cry if this happened
Lol in context it was fine+funny
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Tweet, 02:48 UTC · 6 likes
Tomorrow is my quadrennial “sit in front of a physical TV by my own volition” day
Quote tweet, 05:13 UTC · 29 likes
I reposted this before, but I’ve been thinking about it
There won’t be a spiritual reconning, or any other sort of cosmic justice. The universe does care, but only via the sentience of its constituent parts—not in a way that fills the God-shaped hole in the human psyche
Quoting Syd Steyerhart (@SydSteyerhart): The barbarity and scale of factory farming is damaging the world soul. This isn't about going vegetarian (I am not a vegetarian), it's a simple recognition that we have turned the world into an eternal Treblinka for countless sentient things and there's a price to pay.
Reply to @arithmoquine, 06:23 UTC · 5 likes
henry (@arithmoquine):
Lol what crazy mf runs that account
Tweet, 15:53 UTC · 9 likes
Pleased to announce that I have no on-the-ground Election Day insight for the twitter hivemind to consume and integrate
Quote tweet, 17:50 UTC · 9 likes
Wtf
Quoting Garrison Lovely (@GarrisonLovely): 🚨BREAKING🚨 X suspended the SwapYourVote account w/o providing an explanation, according to multiple volunteers with the project. However, the link to the site http://SwapYourVote.org is not being suppressed (which X did to the JD Vance dossier published by @kenklippenstein).🧵
Tweet, 19:07 UTC · 10 likes
Opinion: I was a Harris supporter in Pennsylvania. Then Joe Rogan endorsed Donald Trump
Tweet, 19:31 UTC · 11 likes
I want to believe that acausal trade as a developed theory is causally responsible for @SwapYourVote which will be causally responsible for Harris winning
Thread, continued, 19:34 UTC · 2 likes
It’s a textbook-quality example tbh. Me being honest is some evidence that my partner was honest. Acausal trade goes brr
Reply to @NathanB60857242, 20:31 UTC
Nathan Barnard (@NathanB60857242): It seems like really really weak evidence.
Hard to be sure in qualitative terms but I basically just disagree. Almost all the evidence is in the form of “my actions are evidence that people generally do what they say they will absent strong reasons to do the contrary”
Thread, continued, 20:34 UTC
Ie most of the decision procedure was done by evolution and shared environment in creating highly correlated facts about human psychology, explicit thinking about weird philosophy stuff only makes it a tiny bit more overdetermined
Quote tweet, 20:35 UTC · 7 likes
!
Quoting Trevor Levin (@trevposts): Apparently Swap Your Vote has been getting lots of swing-state interest and is urgently looking for more CA voters who haven't voted yet -- if you're in CA and down to vote third-party if a swing-state voter votes Dem, consider signing up! Link in next tweet.
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Tweet, 03:02 UTC · 10 likes
Darn
Tweet, 03:43 UTC · 88 likes
Maybe NYT just got unlucky but this doesn’t look like much of a Bayesian model
Tweet, 11:36 UTC · 36 likes
I wanna be optimistic but yeah this is pretty bad
Reply, 16:03 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
I don’t think this will be the result
Quote tweet, 16:09 UTC · 177 likes
This kind of bootlicking is sad to see (and an indictment of Trump’s character) but it’s also totally rational and even courageous. Bootlicking can be justified if it means you will be more likely to win a just war
Quoting Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa): Congratulations to @realDonaldTrump on his impressive election victory!
I recall our great meeting with President Trump back in September, when we discussed in detail the Ukraine-U.S. strategic partnership, the Victory Plan, and ways to put an end to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the “peace through strength” approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together.
We look forward to an era of a strong United States of America under President Trump’s decisive leadership. We rely on continued strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States.
We are interested in developing mutually beneficial political and economic cooperation that will benefit both of our nations. Ukraine, as one of Europe's strongest military powers, is committed to ensuring long-term peace and security in Europe and the Transatlantic community with the support of our allies.
I am looking forward to personally congratulating President Trump and discussing ways to strengthen Ukraine's strategic partnership with the United States.
Reply to @gelionexists, 16:55 UTC · 1 like
GE Lion (@gelionexists): I get your point but calling this bootlicking is a little unfair considering the position he's in
Yeah fair
Reply to @sullyj3, 16:55 UTC · 4 likes
░▒▓▒░▒▓▒░▒▓▒░ (@sullyj3): brutal to witness though
https://x.com/sullyj3/status/1854161711999459825
Yes
Reply to @BenShindel, 18:23 UTC · 10 likes
Ben (@BenShindel): @AaronBergman18 that looks PRECISELY like a Bayesian model, lol
Sure looks like a lot of predictable updating didn’t get priced in
Quote tweet, 20:02 UTC · 13 likes
They have too much money, shut it all down
Quoting Sam Altman (@sama): http://chat.com
Thread, continued, 20:02 UTC · 4 likes
When I have infinity VC cash, http://www.aaronbergman.net will just be a dot com
Reply to @Benthamsbulldog, 20:06 UTC · 2 likes
Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog): Lots of people are extremely freaked out. On my blog, linked in bio, I explain why not to be.
I don’t think people should freak out (although this is a strawman based on what im seeing) but like it does seem really quite bad, especially vis a vis AI
I would like reasonably serious and competent people do be in power during the maybe-singularity
Quote tweet, 20:16 UTC · 14 likes
The duck who is the banner of my blog just because I thought he was funny and whimsical -looking recently passed away btw. RIP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Boi
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): When I have infinity VC cash, http://www.aaronbergman.net will just be a dot com
Tweet, 22:09 UTC · 6 likes
If peanuts were a drug they’d probably be prescription only because they induce anaphylaxis in a decent chunk of the population (~.8% of the US population has a potentially-fatal allergy according to Claude)
Tweet, 22:58 UTC · 12 likes
Stoic mindset + agentic action is probably the best combo in response to bad things happening
There’s no conceptual contradiction, but there might be a partial psychological contradiction, at least sometimes. Idk what to do about this
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Quote tweet, 02:31 UTC · 5 likes
Is this what a Bayesian plot would have looked like assuming the prior on Trump was 0.5? (pretend the probability is capped appropriately at p=1)
First Claude says no, then I push him and he says yes
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Maybe NYT just got unlucky but this doesn’t look like much of a Bayesian model
Quote tweet, 11:31 UTC · 26 likes
E/accs congratulating themselves for American growth
Quoting Beff (e/acc) (@beffjezos): This is why Europe is decelerating and America is accelerating.
It starts with the culture.
This realization is why we've been scaling techno-optimism to the world with e/acc.
Everyone can and will join in on our acceleration up the Kardashev scale
Reply to @StefanFSchubert, 15:47 UTC · 14 likes
Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert): Modern medicine is one damn free lunch after the other
Sorta, I think vaccines are one example. Emergency medicine has plenty. But I have a prior on “rare free lunch” in managing complex and long-term diseases like obesity
There’s good theoretical reason for this: the human body is basically a web of layered control systems
Thread, continued, 15:48 UTC · 5 likes
Very hard to beat these at their own game of making sure Nothing Ever Happens - even harder to beat them without messing other things up
Reply to @StefanFSchubert, 15:51 UTC · 3 likes
Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert): Have you seen this paper? Maybe of interest
Not yet although I think I’ve encountered less formal but similar arguments. Thanks!
Reply to @StefanFSchubert, 15:55 UTC · 2 likes
Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert): @AaronBergman18 I read the previous version and found it very interesting
For anyone else reading this thread https://nickbostrom.com/evolutionary-optimality.pdf
Tweet, 16:01 UTC · 11 likes
Kinda sucks that the POTUS race is treated as a culture war referendum instead of, like, who to choose to do the job of president
Tweet, 16:09 UTC · 4 likes
Planes shouldn’t be able to bounce like this. It literally bounces once and keeps flying.
Like they’re too big, not with the relevant properties of a tennis or basket ball. Idgi
(video, plays on X)
Friday, November 8, 2024
Tweet, 14:28 UTC · 234 likes
Pretty sure I’m the only person in the world with correct gender culture war takes (causal misandry is rampant and bad but also the feminization of society is mostly good)
Reply to @StefanFSchubert, 14:33 UTC · 10 likes
Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert): High decoupling view
Based
Reply to @BernoulliDefect, 14:38 UTC · 4 likes
bernoulli_defect (@BernoulliDefect): There’s an oversupply of emotive and personal accounts of “how the left lost young men” and basically zero dorky policy analysis that accepts they may be voting in their rational self interest
Even simple things like “nuclear power is ‘right wing’, men like nuclear” go unsaid
Voters don’t generally vote in their self-interest except insofar as they like expressing identity and tribal affiliation
Reply, 14:54 UTC · 13 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
Less violent conflict, more care/compassion seems good long term
Tweet, 15:01 UTC · 43 likes
Does anyone have a better idea than Anthropic x US Military? Seems like this is the best possible pairwise combination and simply excluding the most important technology since the Industrial Revolution from warfare is not a real possibility
Reply to @SpencrGreenberg, 15:37 UTC · 15 likes
Spencer Greenberg 🔍 (@SpencrGreenberg): A question for you: other than inquiries about consciousness, what, in your opinion, is one of the most fascinating unsolved or hard-to-resolve philosophical questions?
“What the fuck?” which translates more politely as “why is there something instead of nothing?” but I think is related to consciousness because these both seem like pretty strong objections to the standard scientific materialist worldview being all there is
Reply to @ESRogs, 15:40 UTC · 7 likes
Rogs 🔍🔸 (@ESRogs): @AaronBergman18 Causal or casual?
Casual lol, thanks
Reply, 15:45 UTC · 14 likes
(The tweet being replied to is no longer available.)
Yeah this is 100% me, my IQ actually drops at least 40 points in this context and this is not hyperbole
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 17:20 UTC · 15 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 8, 2024: Pretty sure I’m the only person in the world with correct gender culture war takes (causal misandry is rampant and bad but also the feminization of society is…
Update: it appears I am not the only person in the world with this view
Reply to @frances__lorenz, 17:21 UTC · 4 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @frances__lorenz is no longer available.)
Idk about Taylor but you can definitely get feelings nerd-sniped
Reply to @NathanB60857242, 17:24 UTC · 12 likes
Nathan Barnard (@NathanB60857242): @AaronBergman18 interesting, I'm similar except i think the causal misandry isn't rampant while still being bad
“Men bad” vibes seems to be the default to me among educated western liberals
Reply to @Oneoneder, 17:31 UTC · 8 likes
Sara Straw 🌐 (@Oneoneder): @AaronBergman18 Society is not "feminized", society is Yankee-pilled.
Yankee culture (being polite and respectful, avoiding feuds, disparaging revenge) is basically an advancement on the tech tree. Honor culture is very wasteful and zero sum.
I’m not sure there’s a huge difference when put like that, but more convincingly IMO it would be very strange if (western) women gaining rights, money, influence, status, etc. over recent decades didn’t usher in some level of overall feminization
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Reply to @NathanB60857242, 17:33 UTC · 3 likes
Nathan Barnard (@NathanB60857242): reply and I'll tell you where you are on the kiki-bouba, brat-demure axis
Tell meeeee
Quote tweet, 17:45 UTC · 17 likes
There’s a weird dynamic in medical politics where some specific issue becomes salient and the world bends in response but only in a very specific way…
Quoting Danielle Fong 🔆 (@DanielleFong): neo trans - bro alliance on making testosterone legal to get
Thread, continued, 17:45 UTC · 14 likes
Hormones being accessible for trans people but largely not cis men is one example
Marijuana being freely available in some places but random other drugs (zofran, propranolol) remaining Rx only is another
Reply to @lun_aaaaa, 17:49 UTC · 3 likes
unrelated moon horse (@lun_aaaaa): @AaronBergman18 > Hormones being accessible for trans people but largely not cis men is one example
? Testosterone Replacement Therapy for cis men is incredibly popular
It’s popular yes but either expensive via private clinics or you have to fight the system to get it
I was on TRT!
Reply to @adrusi, 17:54 UTC · 3 likes
autumn (@adrusi): @AaronBergman18 you know you can just buy non-controlled Rx-only drugs online, right? just has to be international so shipping takes a couple weeks
Yeah, I may or may not have done this before
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Quote tweet, 06:22 UTC · 30 likes
It is very endearing that she thinks I am an AI expert because I use ChatGPT (although tbf I’ve been talking about it since ~2017)
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Oh to have the optimism of a parent thinking his child can get a job at an EA org
Tweet, 06:23 UTC · 24 likes
Everyone’s body, the FDA and some overpaid doctors’ choice
Reply to @NoahTopper, 06:25 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 i’ll see what i can do
Can I be ur garden hermit
Reply to @NoahTopper, 18:48 UTC · 1 like
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 I'm not sure what this entails
Just like a hollow tree trunk and small stipend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit
Reply to @NoahTopper, 19:00 UTC · 3 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): Why is there something rather than nothing?
Idk
Reply to @NoahTopper, 19:00 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): Almost a month later and still no answer from @AaronBergman18 on why there's something rather than nothing
(quoting @NoahTopper: @AaronBergman18 Why is there something rather than nothing?)
Sad
Reply to @GaryMarcus, 19:14 UTC · 3 likes
Gary Marcus (@GaryMarcus): Folks, game over. I won.
GPT is hitting a period of diminishing returns, just like I said it would.
(quoting @amir: news: OpenAI's upcomning Orion model shows how GPT improvements are slowing down It's prompting OpenAI to bake in reasoning and other tweaks after the initial model training phase.)
Lol
Monday, November 11, 2024
Reply to @default_friend, 03:31 UTC · 2 likes
Katherine Dee 🐬/acc (@default_friend): I NEED 🚨 GAVIN NEWSOM 🚨 FAN FIC
@livgorton
Quote tweet, 03:33 UTC · 279 likes
Half insane, half based
Quoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr): FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.
Reply, 03:55 UTC · 6 likes
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Reply to @NoahTopper, 00:37 UTC · 1 like
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): I started watching Taskmaster Junior and found the perfect shirt for @AaronBergman18
And @livgorton !!!!!
Thread, continued, 00:38 UTC · 2 likes
I might actually buy this https://a.co/d/jkHSHwl
Reply to @arthur_wright_, 00:49 UTC · 2 likes
Arthur Wrong 🔸 (@arthur_wright_): Life update: last week I got so violently stomach-ill after EAG that in the middle of the night I fainted while trying to get some water and concussed myself on my kitchen floor. So now I'm not sick anymore but I have vertigo 🫨
Nooooooooooooo
Reply to @bstract_thot, 13:33 UTC · 2 likes
ER!S (@bstract_thot): i bring a sort "knows too much about psychiatry" vibe to to the psychiatrist's office that psychiatrists don't really like
Lmao real
Reply, 19:32 UTC · 1 like
Preregistering that it will be more equal across races than anyone naively expects
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Quote tweet, 02:57 UTC · 19 likes
Wait what
Quoting Garrison Lovely (@GarrisonLovely): Ilya Sutskever, perhaps the most influential proponent of the AI "scaling hypothesis," just told Reuters that scaling has plateaued. This is a big deal! This comes on the heels of a big report that OpenAI's in-development Orion model had disappointing results. 🧵
Reply to @NoahTopper, 17:04 UTC · 1 like
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 https://x.com/NoahTopper/status/1792321641835626795
Nice, thanks
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Reply to @JgaltTweets, 17:35 UTC · 2 likes
JgaltTweets (@JgaltTweets): Two years ago today
image attached
(quoting @SBF_FTX: 1) What)
Rip
Reply, 17:38 UTC · 2 likes
Fr
Tweet, 17:39 UTC · 1 like
Excellent question
Quote tweet, 17:45 UTC · 6 likes
Make it OTC
Quoting Marios Georgakis (@MariosGeorgakis): Hazard ratio=0.07❗️
That's the ridiculous effect of tirzepatide (dual GIP/GLP1r agonist) on the 3-year incidence of diabetes among patients with obesity
It's the kind of massive effect you expect for vaccines, not chronic disease prevention.
Friday, November 15, 2024
Reply to @goblinodds, 08:05 UTC · 3 likes
𝖜𝖔𝖒𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖆 𝖈𝖆𝖚𝖘𝖊 (@goblinodds): what's a good funny short signal i can add to my bio to balance out pronouns and maximize confusion
(quoting @FeralPHunter: the thing about pronouns in bio is that it filters out one annoying group of people and unfortunately attracts a different group of annoying people)
“Professional decoupler”
Reply to @albrgr, 21:23 UTC · 8 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @albrgr is no longer available.)
Consider this my application
Quote tweet, 21:31 UTC · 5 likes
For 95% of (my) use cases, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini would all do fine. I choose based on anticipated vibes
Quoting davidad 🎇 (@davidad):
Quote tweet, 22:56 UTC · 25 likes
They’re looking for people who are smart and a little nerdy. You have nothing to lose
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): It is very endearing that she thinks I am an AI expert because I use ChatGPT (although tbf I’ve been talking about it since ~2017)
Thread, continued, 22:56 UTC · 6 likes
Yes this is a real conversation I just had with my mom
Thread, continued, 22:56 UTC · 1 like
She’s not wrong tbf
Quote tweet, 22:59 UTC · 17 likes
Yeah this is an awesome insight. You’re mostly running on priors with only the lightest touch of guardrail guidance from sensory input
Quoting henry (@arithmoquine): thinking about one of my favorite tweets
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Tweet, 00:24 UTC · 5 likes
If you run the AC at this temperature it could freeze
Reply to @justalexoki, 01:33 UTC · 2 likes
taoki (@justalexoki): there's no proof seed oils are actually bad for you btw
Proof is a high bar. What’s the EV? I think they’re probably fine (60%) but mostly avoid anyway
Tweet, 01:38 UTC · 7 likes
Girls who reply 1-3 times on hinge and then ghost, how’s life?
Quote tweet, 01:54 UTC · 17 likes
Where do I read these emails
Quoting Nabeel S. Qureshi (@nabeelqu): This email will be quoted in history books decades from now
Reply to @NoahTopper, 02:08 UTC · 1 like
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 Don’t know if I’ve already shared this but I had a girl I’d been talking to for a while say “How would you like to meet up RIGHT NOW?” and I said yes then she ghosted me
Wtf but also this (not the ghosting part) would fix me
This is the ~only way I can make plans and other ppl reading this can vouch
Reply, 02:23 UTC · 1 like
This isn’t true. Changing minds is option 1, waiting for people to die and new people to have different opinions is option 2 and I think generally how public opinion usually changes
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 02:48 UTC · 8 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 16, 2024: Where do I read these emails
This is what I could find https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.32.0_1.pdf
Quote tweet, 02:52 UTC · 19 likes
Page 91 - I hope @open_phil is following along carefully and possibly preparing a case
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): This is what I could find https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.32.0_1.pdf
Thread, continued, 02:57 UTC · 9 likes
Spicy and correct:
"Never before has a corporation gone from tax-exempt charity to a $157 billion for-profit, market-paralyzing gorgon—and in just eight years. Never before has it happened, because doing so violates almost every principle of law governing economic activity...
Thread, continued, 02:58 UTC · 7 likes
It requires lying to donors, lying to members, lying to markets, lying to regulators, and lying to the public."
Reply to @manic_pixie_agi, 03:08 UTC · 2 likes
Corinne (🏠 in NYC) (@manic_pixie_agi): Lots of paper links in recent ClearerThinking post
@littIeramblings implicitly mentioned!!!!!!!
Tweet, 03:52 UTC · 5 likes
🌶️
https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/gwern-branwen
Quote tweet, 04:41 UTC · 26 likes
One thing the FDA is good for is quality control. I know there are are libertarian arguments in the other direction, but I’d be fine with FDA as label accuracy enforcer
Quoting 0.005 Seconds (3/694) (@seconds_0): A real USDA / FDA would eviscerate companies over heavy metal levels. This is a known superpoison that doesnt go away easily. How in the sam hill does this keep happening?
Tweet, 05:30 UTC · 114 likes
(Hypothetical past DOGE setting back obesity and diabetes treatment by a generation) NIH wastes MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars every year studying GILA MONSTER venom
Thread, continued, 05:40 UTC · 8 likes
Fr though, the US federal government is the ~only institution with enough money and scope to act as a civilizational hits-based VC-esque funder/doer
Thread, continued, 05:40 UTC · 7 likes
Elon should know as well as anyone that you get rich (/more of whatever success metric) by rolling the dice a bunch and “wasting” a lot of money in the course of eventually funding Amazon/Google/Apple
Thread, continued, 05:40 UTC · 10 likes
There are a lot of ways the federal government can work better, but scaling back moonshot science stuff and making sure every department head is terrified of spending money for illegible reasons is not one of them
Reply to @an_interstice, 08:08 UTC · 2 likes
interstice (@an_interstice): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4CDnj9tA7ugxr/openai-email-archives-from-musk-v-altman
Thank you!
Quote tweet, 10:00 UTC · 7 likes
It’s awkward to post/RT stuff like this because it’s often related to race and immigration
I think ~open borders is good and correct policy and yet stuff like this is nuts and even people with bad takes should be free to say them without getting arrested
Quoting Lewis 🇺🇸 (@ctjlewis): there is no freedom of speech in the United Kingdom. they are completely compromised.
Thread, continued, 10:00 UTC · 7 likes
It really seems that you have to promote free speech as an affirmative value because the natural tendency of human society is to sprint in the opposite direction
Reply to @AnnaWSalamon, 10:33 UTC · 2 likes
Anna Salamon (@AnnaWSalamon): I see no reason to diverge from the "null hypothesis" that he has always and only been pursuing power, and saying what was locally useful toward that, with EAs/nerds/idealists as his dupes. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
+1
Tweet, 14:38 UTC · 3 likes
Tweaked some probabilities on my best charity market so they currently accord with my beliefs
Think any of this is wrong? Awesome, now’s your chance to trade away fake internet points for a decent chance of moving real money
https://manifold.markets/AaronBergman18/what-donationaccepting-entity-eg-ch
Tweet, 14:38 UTC · 1 like
Tbc I take this market seriously but not as the sole arbiter of my ultimate take
Thread, continued, 14:39 UTC · 2 likes
Whale trader revealed to be @SpacedOutMatt (according to trustworthy sources close to the matter) putting manna where his mouth is
Reply to @albrgr, 18:04 UTC · 2 likes
Alexander Berger (@albrgr): Cool paper finding high returns to tax enforcement, esp at the top end
image attached
(quoting @QJEHarvard: Recently accepted by #QJE, “A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution,” by Boning, Hendren (@nhendren82), Sprung-Keyser (@bsprungkeyser), and Stuart: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae037)
Don’t make me tap the sign
Tweet, 18:30 UTC · 11 likes
Why didn’t Meta buy Twitter? $1.4T market cap vs like $50B
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 18:33 UTC · 2 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Antitrust?
Sad
Tweet, 18:42 UTC · 9 likes
I’ll fight someone and live stream it for a sufficient amount of money
Reply to @NoahTopper, 18:44 UTC · 3 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 Let's do it
Are you paying me or fighting me?
Quote tweet, 18:45 UTC · 18 likes
Who wants to sponsor this, perhaps to benefit the shrimp or something? @NoahTopper
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): I’ll fight someone and live stream it for a sufficient amount of money
Reply, 20:57 UTC · 1 like
5’7” 160ish I think
Reply to @tszzl, 21:12 UTC · 7 likes
roon (@tszzl): this stuff is dumb/driven by cruelty rather than a desire for efficiency
it’s like deleting text files to clean your hard drive
Turns out I have 12gb worth of txts
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Reply to @ajewishbrat, 07:51 UTC · 7 likes
jewish brat (@ajewishbrat): since ur all here im single and 25 and in school to be a doctor
@absurdlymax saved my puppy from a burning building
Reply to @Laura_k_Duffy, 15:44 UTC · 5 likes
Laura Muresianu 🌐🔸🇺🇸 (@Laura_k_Duffy): Life update: I am excited to announce that tomorrow I will be starting a new job as a researcher at @RethinkPriors (again)!
Really looking forward to working on cause prioritization and helping find cost-effective ways to improve global health and animal welfare once again!
Nothing escapes
Tweet, 15:49 UTC · 9 likes
You don’t hear people talking about black holes much. Like most of the 3-9 year old fixations, the kids are right once again. Extremely weird and creepy. Black. Hole.
They have my respect but not my admiration
Reply to @MaxGhenis, 17:46 UTC · 3 likes
Max Ghenis (@MaxGhenis): @Laura_k_Duffy @AaronBergman18 @RethinkPriors Wait what is this, I love this image
I propose the megapig criterion for modeling the moral weights of individuals (generally of different animal species), which is basically that the model should give the same answer regardless of how you decide to draw boundaries to define an individual…
Thread, continued, 17:47 UTC · 2 likes
So if you stapled together two pigs and treated that as the unit of analysis, your model should say that this being has exactly twice as much moral weight as a single pig
Quote tweet, 18:55 UTC · 2 likes
Inspired to do the same:
Understanding the Taylor Swift Phenomenon: The Duality of Modern Femininity (by me and Claude)
https://claude.site/artifacts/13f650d9-3b03-483e-86c9-3562991a2cb4
Quoting Tyler John (@tyler_m_john): Here's another experiment in writing with Claude: "Deontology is Self-Effacing"
https://claude.site/artifacts/3b2014c2-727a-4db7-b78c-84f8e881e5b9
Quote tweet, 19:31 UTC · 13 likes
I think seed oils are probably fine (~60%), but putting this as a “fact check” is just ludicrous
This writing sounds like the issue is as decided as vaccines<>autism or cigarettes<>cancer. It’s not.
Quoting Someone:
Tweet, 20:04 UTC · 28 likes
I think I’m gonna make “fatwa” a thing white people say, like inshallah
“I am hereby issuing a fatwa that the gathering shall commence at 7pm”
Tweet, 20:13 UTC · 2 likes
I haven’t really grokked Secret Third Thing decision theories yet, but I think the correct synthesis of causal and evidential dc is that causal can and should be subsumed under evidential bc causation is just one type of evidence
Tweet, 20:17 UTC · 5 likes
There should be adult swim but for playgrounds
Tbc this is for everyone’s benefit. I know I *can* just go and use a playground, but I don’t want to weird anyone out
Reply to @slimepriestess, 20:18 UTC · 2 likes
Ra (@slimepriestess): have you...have you not read the FDT paper yet?
I’m sorry I haven’t, I repent to you and @NoahTopper
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 20:44 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Hey I constantly send this to you too!
True, I repent for both the thing and not tagging you
Reply to @NoahTopper, 21:25 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @slimepriestess @AaronBergman18 If you just read TDT already you’d grok it all Aaron
Ugh fine, I’m making it into audio
Reply to @NoahTopper, 22:04 UTC · 1 like
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 @slimepriestess (But it’s better than nothing)
You can decide https://open.spotify.com/episode/74NUxHD7HVHUU6ugLQoXCS?si=ISRukO7tQJmNUN-M1qZitQ
Thread, continued, 22:04 UTC · 2 likes
I spent $4 on this it better be good
Reply to @NoahTopper, 22:23 UTC · 2 likes
Quinoah 🔍⏸️ (@NoahTopper): @AaronBergman18 @slimepriestess I’d be willing to cover the cost of turning it into audio for you since you already spent $4 and I’m the one demanding it of you lol
Lol no
Quote tweet, 22:58 UTC · 23 likes
Bro is literally picking on the one competent technocratic institution we have
Quoting Elon Musk (@elonmusk): Which one would do a better job of deciding interest rates?
Monday, November 18, 2024
Tweet, 01:25 UTC · 64 likes
So much VC money that they don’t even have an incentive to ration via pricing
Someone should remind them they can charge money for things
Reply to @acesounderglass, 03:16 UTC · 1 like
Elizabeth Van Nostrand (@acesounderglass): I have crudely defined "stomach irritation", brought on by antibiotics. Slippery elm and soluble fiber both seem to help. What else have people found helpful in this category?
I'm on probiotics but it's a losing battle until I'm off antibiotics.
Possibly aloe Vera (juice or concentrate/extract) and peppermint tea
Tweet, 04:53 UTC · 5 likes
I’m more upset Hillary lost, even now
Thread, continued, 04:53 UTC · 1 like
It feels more cosmically wrong somehow
Tweet, 05:04 UTC · 37 likes
Bruh
Thread, continued, 05:04 UTC · 6 likes
I think they’re indistinguishable
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 05:33 UTC · 5 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): @AaronBergman18 Draw me like one of your French girls
Actually pretty good from Claude!
Tweet, 07:01 UTC · 1,780 likes
Rent is wild because $400/month gets you:
Spotify
Amazon Prime
Grocery delivery service + tips
Climbing gym membership
Claude + ChatGPT paid versions
4x30 min trip Ubers/week + tips (no need for a car)
OR
A slightly bigger apartment in a US city
Thread, continued, 07:01 UTC · 237 likes
I feel like the first bundle sounds and feels bougie/lavish in a way $1400 vs $1800 on rent does not
Thread, continued, 07:03 UTC · 149 likes
This is actually a good reminder I should probably be more aggressive about downgrading rent somehow
On the margin I’d rather have a smaller and less convenient place and spend money elsewhere, but moving is just a huge hassle
Reply to @kepe__, 07:14 UTC · 4 likes
kepe ✨🇫🇮 (@kepe__): @AaronBergman18 (i'm sure this is a joke but this isn't what fatwa means)
It is now
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 16:48 UTC · 7 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): 30 min Uber is ~$40 so you’re looking at $160/week for 4
I honestly realized this after posting and was hoping no one would notice
Reply to @hyperdiscogirl, 16:50 UTC · 14 likes
hyper(bolic) disco(unting) girl in the bay (@hyperdiscogirl): @AaronBergman18 wait that wouldn't even pay for the Ubers where I've lived lol
F
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 17:04 UTC · 27 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 18, 2024: This is actually a good reminder I should probably be more aggressive about downgrading rent somehow On the margin I’d rather have a smaller and less…
I messed up the uber calculation
Plz don’t cancel me
Reply to @dylanmatt, 17:06 UTC · 6 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @dylanmatt is no longer available.)
Wait what
Reply to @Second_Nick, 17:10 UTC · 10 likes
Second Nick (@Second_Nick): @AaronBergman18 Must be some cheap groceries and Ubers
I messed up the Ubers, but delivery is based on Safeway’s program which is $100/year for free delivery (tips not included)
Reply to @arithmoquine, 17:11 UTC · 3 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): rationalist weirdness:
i got curious, so i surgically removed part of my leg to eat it. i'll say more at tomorrow's moloch ritual.e/acc weirdness:
i sometimes sleep *without* a bed frame(quoting @theresidency: you can't take weirdness out of exceptional people no matter how many millions they raise or how much revenue they make here's a thread of unusual habits and quirks of some of our exceptional ppl living in our hacker houses in san francisco, new york city, bangalore, london 🧵)
@SpacedOutMatt food 4 thought 🦶
Quote tweet, 17:16 UTC · 3 likes
I think this is underselling the methodological difficulty but only by like 2 OOMs
The Navy should randomize dining halls on aircraft carriers!
Quoting Jeremy Kauffman 🦔🌲🌕 (@jeremykauffman): If seed oils are as bad as many claim, a study proving this could be done in a few months, with a few hundred people, for under a few million dollars.
Why don't the people obsessed with seed oils just prove their claims?
Reply to @maiamindel, 17:44 UTC · 2 likes
Maia (@maiamindel): surprising absolutely nobody, "just changing a form" does nothing to help with organ donation rates
Surprises me, it seemed pretty intuitively plausible
Reply to @xHascox, 17:48 UTC · 3 likes
Marco Gabriel (@xHascox): @AaronBergman18 @dylanmatt @AbieRohrig Just shows, that the family should be excluded from that decision imo
Yeah
Reply to @cube_flipper, 18:10 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @cube_flipper is no longer available.)
💯
Tweet, 18:42 UTC · 14 likes
I kinda like an idiot bc I used to think that datacenters literally just stored data, like basically a warehouse full of souped-up flash drives
But this is kinda their fault, it’s a bad term
Reply to @PositivFuturist, 18:50 UTC · 41 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @PositivFuturist is no longer available.)
Talking about going to uninhabited places in colonialist terms is such a red flag for bad thinking
Reply to @retarded__woman, 19:20 UTC · 2 likes
big titty warlord (@retarded__woman): Who has harmed black people more
I mean the literal answer is pre-modern democrats because they were the party of slavery and segregation
Ofc anyone who says this meaningfully reflects on the modern Dem party is an idiot
Reply to @arubikscube, 19:26 UTC · 2 likes
aru (@arubikscube): yeah, you'll find symbiotic organisms actually lose the ability to code for certain things because they can get it from their partner
Yes closely related is the organelle <-> organism pipeline
Reply to @onefiftyfivemm, 20:15 UTC · 3 likes
Drew (@onefiftyfivemm): what'll really bake your noodle is that at a certain resolution, species cease to exist at all
Big if true (I actually don’t really understand speciation and why we have ~discrete species as opposed to a continuous spectrum)
Reply to @jkeatn, 21:10 UTC · 1 like
Jake Eaton (@jkeatn): it's fine to be a no seed oils person as long as you're honest that this choice is based on evolutionary theory, not epidemiology, and as long as you follow what else that theory would dictate, namely you
1) don't fry anything in any fat (bc pans)
2) don't use the internet
Lol I basically agree through the word “epidemiology” but the second part doesn’t make any sense
Quote tweet, 21:43 UTC · 2 likes
New pdf just dropped (for nutrition nerds)
Quoting Jake Eaton (@jkeatn): @AaronBergman18 see chap 2: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3222&context=art_sci_etds
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 21:54 UTC · 2 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): I see you've laid the perfect Aaron Bergman trap
You’re right! This is a huge nerdsnipe!
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Tweet, 12:16 UTC · 9 likes
No one:
Claude: ah,
Quote tweet, 20:25 UTC · 18 likes
I think my brain is kinda weird bc this doesn’t hit in the way I think it should
Like to me it just seems kinda banal and obvious lol
Quoting Chris Freiman (@cafreiman):
Reply to @PeterJAngel, 20:26 UTC · 2 likes
Peter🧅📈 (@PeterJAngel): Anyone else being negatively polarized in favor of PBMs?
@FrostedSapling found u an enemy
Quote tweet, 20:35 UTC · 14 likes
CN/acc
Quoting Community Notes (@CommunityNotes): Misleading article or headline? You can now add a Community Note to a link. Every post that includes that link will show the note. Available today for Top Writers.
Details: https://communitynotes.x.com/guide/en/under-the-hood/media-matching#link-matching
Reply to @jaybaxter, 20:41 UTC · 5 likes
Jay Baxter (@jaybaxter): 🚀Notes on links🚀: one big step closer to notes everywhere!
This is one of our most requested features and one I've been very excited about for a long time, thanks @dortiz314 for making it happen!
(quoting @CommunityNotes: Misleading article or headline? You can now add a Community Note to a link. Every post that includes that link will show the note. Available today for Top Writers. Details: https://communitynotes.x.com/guide/en/under-the-hood/media-matching#link-matching)
This is the future we want
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 20:41 UTC · 4 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 19, 2024: CN/acc
Quote tweet, 22:16 UTC · 4 likes
Absolute circus
Quoting Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma): DR OZ TO HEAD CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES
Reply to @voooooogel, 22:26 UTC · 2 likes
thebes (@voooooogel): if you spent your childhood making duct tape wallets, you may be entitled to a job as a machine learning researcher
What do I get for having bought one from a friend for $5 circa 2011?
I guess I do buy a fair amount of AI services lol
Quote tweet, 22:50 UTC · 12 likes
Enough
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): It’s kinda insane that Elon is such a midwit on twitter
Like rescuing astronauts with ur own company is objectively one of the coolest things a person could do
Quote tweet, 22:54 UTC · 3 likes
What’s the most underrated dataset available online 👀
Quoting Will Manidis (@WillManidis): what is the most underrated pdf available online
Reply to @CartoonsHateHer, 22:57 UTC · 3 likes
Cartoons Hate Her! (@CartoonsHateHer): I created this reaction image for the next time a chud on here asks if I'm Jewish
Reply, 22:58 UTC
Wait what am I looking at
Reply to @JgaltTweets, 23:20 UTC · 2 likes
JgaltTweets (@JgaltTweets): The source is the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission's annual report to Congress:
Website: https://www.uscc.gov/annual-report/2024-annual-report-congress
PDF: https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024_Annual_Report_to_Congress.pdf
Oh snap
Quote tweet, 23:32 UTC · 8 likes
This is so cool - 5 mins in RStudio + Claude = analysis of which receptors all of the medications I'm taking (ant)agonize, potentially leading to non priced-in effects
I just want MORE (receptors mostly, also drugs)
Quoting EvE Bio (@EvEBiotech): Excited to announce Data Release 1, profiling 1,400 small-molecule FDA-approved drugs vs. an ultimately vast # of gene products. This 1st release is a shake-down cruise, so limited to select nuclear receptors. More to come. Browse, download, enjoy! https://data.evebio.org
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Reply to @wife_geist, 07:08 UTC · 5 likes
once and future wife geist (@wife_geist): seems fucked up that salt and pepper aren’t the same category of substance. one is a plant product and one is a rock
I vibe with this very hard for reasons beyond my understanding
Reply to @arubikscube, 17:49 UTC · 2 likes
aru (@arubikscube): bro why is claude telling me to put my sql queries in a yaml file
Neither of those words are in the Bible
Quote tweet, 17:51 UTC · 4 likes
Let it be known that I did not experience this (I was very muscular though)
Quoting BowTiedKong | Criminal Defense & Family Law Atty (@BowTiedKong): Whenever I post about TRT, people will ask what the actual benefits are
I’m in month four
Energy all day
I can train BJJ at 5, record a podcast a 7, work until 5:30, chase around my son until 9, 9:30
It’s that good
Stop being pussies
Quote tweet, 18:00 UTC · 7 likes
I’m glad this kind of thing happens in real life
Quoting George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): One good thing about FTX is the feds have absorbed some human capital
Tweet, 19:44 UTC · 31 likes
I’m being radicalized in favor of 🔵sky
The one good feature it doesn’t have is Community Notes, but this feels like a solvable problem
Reply to @timhwang, 21:45 UTC · 967 likes
Tim Hwang (@timhwang): What is the greatest, rarest PDF that you have saved down?
20GB (iirc) of survival stuff https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MBL_JaHfqU70TXHYlqBHnvekFLfaadEp
Reply to @timhwang, 23:31 UTC · 5 likes
Tim Hwang (@timhwang): What is the greatest, rarest PDF that you have saved down?
3600+ pages of what I think is mostly but somehow not all Brian Tomasik's writing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_BksaBEj-jfAlijFanetd2D-sf0rGWN/view?usp=drive_link
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Reply to @escvel0city11, 01:12 UTC · 10 likes
11 KM/s (@escvel0city11): Can’t download, do you have another link?
Working on it
Reply to @JosephNWalker, 18:14 UTC · 5 likes
Joseph Noel Walker (@JosephNWalker): EA friends: What are the most interesting debates happening at the moment with respect to effective giving?
This is almost obvious but it’s the most interesting to *me*: what single charity is the most deserving of marginal dollars? https://manifold.markets/AaronBergman18/what-donationaccepting-entity-eg-ch
Tweet, 18:40 UTC · 10 likes
Sending this to all my female friends
Quote tweet, 19:00 UTC · 4 likes
3% of a city is kind of a lot of people lol
Decreasing this by 3 OOMs would be a different story
Quoting Garett Jones (@GarettJones): Me.
Bike lines are for me, personally.
Friday, November 22, 2024
Reply to @MamanLunettes, 02:54 UTC · 2 likes
Violeta𓅓 (@MamanLunettes): 13 yo son just entered a phase where he's like "how can she* be so beautiful, I could just keep looking at her forever"
*girl just being in history class
*nurse in her street clothes he caught a glimpse of before she put on scrubs
etc.
Does this get less intense after a while?
No
Quote tweet, 03:06 UTC · 2 likes
New pdf just dropped
Quoting Ethan Mollick (@emollick): Longer NBER paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32255/w32255.pdf
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 03:24 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): I’m very very sad to say that Howie passed away recently due to an intestinal blockage. He was the best bunny
I’m sorry Matt ❤️
He really was
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Tweet, 05:19 UTC · 91 likes
Am I missing anything
Thread, continued, 05:19 UTC · 20 likes
Am I gonna get canceled for this
Reply to @livgorton, 08:31 UTC · 5 likes
Liv (@livgorton): 6. drinking half of a beverage
7. dresses with pockets
8. cute stationery that never gets used
9. emotional support water bottles
10. miniature cows
I like miniature cows!!!
Tweet, 12:45 UTC · 17 likes
??
Tweet, 12:46 UTC · 1 like
Worked 3 times in a row
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 12:47 UTC · 1 like
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): @livgorton @AaronBergman18
I didn’t know this was a thing!
Reply to @Benthamsbulldog, 13:00 UTC · 4 likes
Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog): @AaronBergman18 Shrimp welfare.
Duh
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 13:04 UTC · 2 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 23, 2024: Worked 3 times in a row
Is this thing totally made up lol
Reply to @HenriThunberg, 13:26 UTC · 3 likes
Henri Thunberg 🔸 (@HenriThunberg): Aaron deducted 10 online points
Sad
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 13:47 UTC · 3 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): @AaronBergman18 @livgorton What are they? I need to get something for my wife for xmas
I was thinking the cow on wheels thing but turns out there are like literal small cows
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 13:56 UTC · 2 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): @AaronBergman18 @livgorton Which one is it? We already have a dog so I don't think the little real cow would work but otoh it seems like something we would do anyway
Idk! But I say go for the real cow!
Reply to @junker_jo, 13:58 UTC · 12 likes
Jo (@junker_jo): Once again it’s the time of year I need to announce that your thermal tights that “look like sheer” aren’t fooling anyone.
For my fellow idiots
Reply to @littIeramblings, 16:05 UTC · 2 likes
sarah (@littIeramblings): lol gonna bat for Aaron here and say that I also didn’t get this
🤝
Reply to @sitka__, 18:41 UTC · 7 likes
Princess Mononokia 🦉 (@sitka__): I’ll be honest I didn’t need to go there
Lol
Quote tweet, 22:22 UTC · 3 likes
Great time to end the war on opioids
Quoting Kevin Drum (@kdrum): Raw data: Fentanyl overdoses have dropped dramatically https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-fentanyl-overdoses-have-dropped-dramatically/
Reply to @_catwu, 23:07 UTC · 2 likes
cat (@_catwu): whenever i ask claude where it wants to travel, it always says kyoto 🌸🩷 (n = 7)
Sunday, November 24, 2024
Tweet, 18:19 UTC · 6 likes
ChatGPT and Claude would be worth >$1B if pitched purely as ed tech
Thread, continued, 18:19 UTC · 4 likes
Every student that doesn’t have a subscription paid for by their school is a policy failure
Reply to @StefanFSchubert, 18:28 UTC · 5 likes
Stefan Schubert (@StefanFSchubert): I think we should cultivate not just legal tolerance and openness but also cultural tolerance and openness. We shouldn’t complain about this kind of thing in this way.
(quoting @ingelramdecoucy: This is the stupidest shit, they pull this at a wedding I’m at I’m marching to the gift table, grabbing my gift back and leaving. Never talking to them again)
Correct take
Quote tweet, 23:32 UTC · 149 likes
I’m guilty of this
Dustin Moskovitz is better than ~everyone else, but he gives people like me a lot to work with and so empirically I’ve criticized him way more than everyone else
Idk what to do about this dynamic, or even if it’s bad
Quoting Amanda Askell (@AmandaAskell): If you're a billionaire and you never want to be criticized for your philanthropy, just don't give to charity. Seems to work depressingly well.
Thread, continued, 23:32 UTC · 20 likes
Maybe I should just post “what the fuck” and tag all the billionaires who haven’t publicly planned to give away loads of money
Thread, continued, 23:50 UTC · 13 likes
I almost pasted a Claude-generated list of tags, but tragically I don't think "what the fuck" is effective messaging. Here's the data if anyone wants to be more suave https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-qnPT_HZLoxzGQ9wglNpBJHh4-CcmKvQZkDhKGg8L3w/edit?usp=sharing
Monday, November 25, 2024
Reply to @shinboson, 00:25 UTC · 3 likes
𝞍 Shin Megami Boson 𝞍 (@shinboson): You could make an argument that philanthropy is, to a first approximation, a misallocation of capital and so was a priori bad.
I wouldn't go so far as to make it, but I do think it is less far from the truth than we'd all optimistically want to believe.
(quoting @AaronBergman18: I’m guilty of this Dustin Moskovitz is better than ~everyone else, but he gives people like me a lot to work with and so empirically I’ve criticized him way more than everyone else Idk what to do about this dynamic, or even if it’s bad)
This might be approximately true for the median donation, I think it's untrue for the top .1% of donated dollars, and EA is approximately the project of finding out which dollars those are
Reply to @shinboson, 00:33 UTC · 2 likes
𝞍 Shin Megami Boson 𝞍 (@shinboson): @AaronBergman18 Effectiveness is a lever, so you really better be right though. This is pretty much the steelman of the criticism of top-down approaches to improving the world.
If you, somehow, were to be wrong— all that effectiveness becomes negative value. It becomes actively harmful.
I agree and am more concerned than most that prima facie positive interventions are actually bad, but still think identifying positive interventions is tractable and actually happening
It’s not called “effective whatever” lol
Tweet, 03:08 UTC · 10 likes
Recently I had a dream in which I did math. Specifically, I estimated that I drove for 46 hours/year
In wakefulness this seems too high
I don’t have a whole lot to say except “is that supposed to happen”
Thread, continued, 03:09 UTC · 3 likes
I even vaguely remember the process
It’s just weird that this has happened exactly once instead of never or lots of times
Tweet, 04:13 UTC · 15 likes
Lol electricity prices are >3x in the UK
So it costs like $18 to run a space heater all day instead of $4-6
Rip
Reply to @daniel_271828, 04:18 UTC · 2 likes
zzDANIEL_ETH (@daniel_271828): Reminder to brush your teeth with fluoride toothpaste, even if you think fluoride shouldn’t be put in the water
(quoting @hubermanlab: Drinking fluoride and brushing your teeth with it are two different things. Just saying.)
Ya fr this is one of the things that makes no sense about fluoridation
You can just apply it to your teeth and not consume it!
Reply to @RokoMijic, 04:24 UTC · 4 likes
Roko 🐉 (@RokoMijic): @AaronBergman18 compared to where?
DC
Reply to @JeremyNguyenPhD, 10:48 UTC · 3 likes
Jeremy Nguyen ✍🏼 🚢 (@JeremyNguyenPhD): Here's what GPT-4o sees when you type "strawberry":
[302, 1618, 19772]
It's not obvious how many "r"s there are, right?
I mean it’s not *not* obvious
You just have to know how many Rs are in each of those tokens. This seems way easier to learn than a bajillion impressive things that 4o can do
Reply to @freed_dfilan, 10:55 UTC · 7 likes
Daniel Filan 🔎 (@freed_dfilan): Thing I just sent @chisness
Thing that was sent to me lol
Quote tweet, 11:27 UTC · 38 likes
Cringe policing gives me terrible vibes
God forbid a person be earnest about anything
Quoting Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza): Someone should run up to the front and yank this self-serving conductor out of there. She’s ruining it! It’s not all about the conductor; it’s about the music. Let the music take center stage
Thread, continued, 11:28 UTC · 4 likes
Separately, I think it’s a little silly to city a study in a community note here
Reply to @HellenicVibes, 11:30 UTC · 3 likes
Zoomer Alcibiades (@HellenicVibes): The coolest person I know on this website has under 5,000 followers. Really makes you think.
Thanks 😊
Reply to @RafaRuizdeLira, 11:57 UTC · 1 like
Rafael Ruiz ⏸️🔸 (@RafaRuizdeLira): @AaronBergman18
Bear
Quote tweet, 12:18 UTC · 15 likes
ITS CALLED SAMA
Quoting 60 Minutes (@60Minutes): Documents obtained by 60 Minutes show OpenAI agreed to pay Sama, an American outsourcing firm, $12.50 an hour per Kenyan worker - far higher than the $2 an hour workers say they got. Sama says it pays a fair wage for the region.
Quote tweet, 13:06 UTC · 9 likes
I used to think this was just dumb and bad but basically negligible at a strategic level
Twitter has made me think that it’s also a serious strategic error
Quoting The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex): BREAKING: Trump planning executive order to remove transgender individuals from US military
Tweet, 17:10 UTC · 4 likes
Why did everyone think airplanes were impossible if hot air balloons were invented in the 18th century?
Feels like proof of concept to me
Thread, continued, 17:10 UTC · 2 likes
If I was trying to invent an airplane I probably would have started with a hot air balloon and tried to move along continuous axes
Me: 0
History: 1
Thread, continued, 17:11 UTC · 5 likes
Ay lfg (not so) great minds
Reply to @Noahpinion, 17:35 UTC · 3 likes
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@Noahpinion): The basics of personal health are not difficult. Being fat is bad for you, so don't eat too much, get your basic nutrients, don't drink/smoke/do drugs, and live an active lifestyle. Other stuff, like what chemicals to avoid, can be useful but is ultimately second-order stuff.
“Don’t eat too much” is doing a lot of work
We basically have no idea how to reliably cause this to happen (I recognize there are a lot of implicit premises here, especially that weight is mostly not under even second-order conscious control)
Reply to @Noahpinion, 18:02 UTC · 26 likes
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@Noahpinion): Here is the original study.
Basically, DEI materials, of the kind currently used in America, turn people on both political sides into fascists.
https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/Instructing-Animosity_11.13.24.pdf
image attached
(quoting @pmarca: 🫣 "A new study found that DEI materials have a wide range of negative consequences, including psychological harm, increased hostility, and greater agreement with extreme authoritarian rhetoric, such as adapted Adolf Hitler quotes."…)
I vibe associate with this, but it does smell like a classic illusory psychology study that doesn’t replicate (or does but doesn’t reflect the implicit real world phenomena that the claims are implicitly attached to)
Reply to @ShamrockSeven7, 20:07 UTC · 2 likes
ShamrockNYC (@ShamrockSeven7): @AaronBergman18 @Noahpinion I do think it's as simple as calories in calories out ...and don't drink a lot of calories (especially soda and beer)
Yes but the determinants of CI and CO are not so simple
Reply to @AskYatharth, 23:22 UTC · 9 likes
yatharth ༺༒༻ (@AskYatharth): i am so fascinated and horrified by this trend of people being sent to the equivalent of a factory floor or home depot and being confused when the pre-built vase they wanted isn't there
I mean I don’t think anyone is morally obligated to make an exe, but it is an awfully nice thing to do (or perhaps more tractably, a list of incredibly concrete steps for a layperson to follow)
Tbf this was much more of an issue pre-LLM
Quote tweet, 23:27 UTC · 4 likes
You can clearly see R leading the pack
Quoting Ben Dicken (@BenjDicken): More languages, more insights!
A few interesting takeaways:
* Java and Kotlin are quick! Possible explanation: Google is heavily invested in performance here.
* Js is really fast as far as interpreted / jit languages go.
* Python is quite slow without things like PyPy.
Reply to @brianchau57, 23:56 UTC · 7 likes
Brian Chau (@brianchau57): Almost no one is worried enough about what if we don't have enough AI progress
Cmon man you can think for 5 seconds and realize a gajillion dollars worth of economic and ideological incentives are already pushing in this direction
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Quote tweet, 04:42 UTC · 2,633 likes
Hot take but to my knowledge, nobody on the left has articulated what’s actually bad about institutions, especially colleges, being largely Asian, or why Asians deserve to be systematically discriminated against relative to whites
Quoting Colin Wright (@SwipeWright): "You're basically just guaranteeing a heavily Asian-American freshmen class."
And the problem with this is...?
Thread, continued, 04:42 UTC · 234 likes
It’s weird that this even feels like a conservative-coded talking point
I think with even a glimpse of perspective beyond the current culture war battle lines, that intuition falls apart
Thread, continued, 04:42 UTC · 81 likes
Tbc I’m in favor of some degree of affirmative action, at least in principle
Reply to @JacquesThibs, 04:45 UTC · 2 likes
Jacques (@JacquesThibs): Anthropic needs to actually explain this thing better if they want it to actually takeoff. Too complicated and not well explained imo.
(quoting @alexalbert__: Introducing the Model Context Protocol (MCP) An open standard we've been working on at Anthropic that solves a core challenge with LLM apps - connecting them to your data. No more building custom integrations for every data source. MCP provides one protocol to connect them all:)
Ya I have no idea what that guy is talking about lol
Reply to @adam__isom, 04:57 UTC · 2 likes
adam ✧ ❥ ~ (@adam__isom): Tweet ideas are free for those that have eyes to see them
Tweet ideas are free for those that have eyes to see them
Reply to @nvpkp, 09:31 UTC · 5 likes
nvpkp (@nvpkp): i would like to hear about the little life optimizations you've done that no one asks about but you really wanna share
me? i put my car keys on a (not-keychain-sized) teddy bear so i can always find them inside my great purse which carries all necessities
Light bulbs I can control from my phone. They’re like $8 each and can also change warmth and brightness
Band aids, face mask, alcohol pads, pen, charging pack with cords, headlamp with extra batteries in backpack. These have seriously saved me before, especially battery pack
Tweet, 09:38 UTC · 6 likes
Here are my endorsements for the EA Forum donation election! Get out (on your phone browser) and vote!
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/
Thread, continued, 09:38 UTC · 2 likes
For context, a bunch of options are not pictured, which I’m implicitly voting against by not ranking
Quote tweet, 09:52 UTC · 5 likes
How much do you want to bet this is just lazy data cleaning and a few Gen Z trolls writing in figures just small enough to be counted as real data
I glanced at the original survey report and it doesn’t rule this out
Quoting ian bremmer (@ianbremmer): who’s going to break the news to gen z..
Quote tweet, 11:52 UTC · 2 likes
All such words should be illegal. Starting with “sanction”
Quoting Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ (@ESYudkowsky): "Cleave" as in "separate", and "cleave" as in "cling to", are two different words with the same spelling and opposed meanings (via "cleofan" and "clifian").
Likewise "rational" as in normative/Bayesian, versus "Rationalism" the philosophical school opposed to Empiricism.
Reply to @Mjreard, 12:24 UTC · 5 likes
Matt Reardon (@Mjreard): Is Afghanistan a counter example? Getting out was obviously the right in the long term, but the short term costs of appearing to lose a popular war were very high when an election is always coming up.
I disagree it was obviously right in the long term
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 16:51 UTC · 4 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): Why not? Also I have huge expertise with helping people with Hinge profiles (@AaronBergman18 )
Lmao how well has that worked
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 16:53 UTC · 2 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): @AaronBergman18 @AndyMasley That is a problem with you, my advice has been impeccable
I actually 100% agree lol
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 16:53 UTC · 3 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): @GjMcGowan @AaronBergman18 @AndyMasley Fr
Thanks Matt lmao
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 16:55 UTC · 7 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 26, 2024: Lmao how well has that worked
Actually as a CB thing it’s worked reasonably well. One hinge date friendzoned me but wound up going to the recent EA global, and I’m like 98% sure I’m counterfactually responsible there
Reply to @absurdlymax, 16:57 UTC · 5 likes
Max Alexander (@absurdlymax): Isn't this the case for making a hinge, not a dating doc?
Fair but I’m only alive bc dating doc
Reply to @SpacedOutMatt, 16:59 UTC · 2 likes
Matt 🔸 (@SpacedOutMatt): Lmao probably wouldn't recommend this to Andy
😢
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Reply to @pli_cachete, 00:43 UTC · 2 likes
Rota Is In Israel🚪🧎♂️ (@pli_cachete): Stats textbooks demand rigorous methods, careful controls & unbiased sampling. Yet statisticians pick methods based on experience & what works in practice. We insist on controlled trials for medicine but teach stats using whatever clicked with last semester's students
Idk if this is what you’re talking about, but newish norms around p-hacking (pre-register, don’t run too many tests, don’t make any new decisions in light of the results) can be the least bad option in some circumstances but is fundamentally gauze on the wound of not…
Quote tweet, 01:27 UTC · 5 likes
Almost all the AI Aaron tweets written locally by llama-8b are dumb but I love this one
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Some goodnight tweets from AI Aaron (using 400 examples, Sonnet 3.5, about $0.015 each...)
Quote tweet, 02:12 UTC · 19 likes
You can really tell that Trump personally wrote this statement
Quoting Jim O’Neill (@regardthefrost): I’m extremely honored to be nominated by @realDonaldTrump and excited to support @RobertKennedyJr and the great people of @HHSGov to make America healthy again.
Reply to @JgaltTweets, 02:16 UTC · 4 likes
JgaltTweets (@JgaltTweets): @AaronBergman18 Trump is a huge proponent of obviating mitochondrial mutations. In fact, many people say he's the father of obviating mitochondrial mutations
Real
Quote tweet, 04:02 UTC · 24 likes
Ok back to criticizing Dusty, who I should say is unironically the best in his class and seems like a great guy
But anyway this is a bad decision
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): I’m guilty of this
Dustin Moskovitz is better than ~everyone else, but he gives people like me a lot to work with and so empirically I’ve criticized him way more than everyone else
Idk what to do about this dynamic, or even if it’s bad
Reply to @Mjreard, 04:30 UTC · 2 likes
Matt Reardon (@Mjreard): @sebkrier @AaronBergman18 @dwarkesh_sp What's the Samantha Power position?
Insofar as this is right I basically just agree. If there ever was a case for interventionism, simply keeping the status quo in Kabul was it
Reply to @panickssery, 05:05 UTC · 2 likes
Arjun Panickssery (@panickssery): "In began two and half years ago, when the first human awoke to consciousness . . . In less than forty years, it will end"
— @ESYudkowsky, 1999He was 20 then
Pretty chilling
Reply to @arithmoquine, 07:13 UTC · 5 likes
henry (@arithmoquine): kinda crazy how i had constant debilitating fatigue for months to the point i thought it was the result of some medical condition, and then being in the bay just instantly fixed it
This strongly disagrees with my world model (which is a problem for my model, not saying you’re lying)
Reply to @freed_dfilan, 07:14 UTC · 3 likes
Daniel Filan 🔎 (@freed_dfilan): Have crossed 2^16 AXRP downloads! 🎉
Congrats!
Quote tweet, 09:31 UTC · 6 likes
Yes extremely based correct take
Quoting Aella (@Aella_Girl): I don't think so! There's an issue where guys simply aren't getting feedback. Men are going through their entire dating lives without ever getting a single ounce of direct feedback. I (with the help of some of my female friends) can tighten this feedback loop to give extremely fast information about how you're coming across, so you can rapidly experiment and iterate. Lots of ppl have blind spots but are walking through life without access to mirrors.
Thursday, November 28, 2024
Quote tweet, 02:55 UTC · 1,611 likes
Getting sniped again. Did everyone realize that (at least at the population level between 1990 and 2010), % of calories from carbs is a super robust predictor of overweight/obese prevalence?
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): 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?
Thread, continued, 02:55 UTC · 114 likes
Not just a proxy for time
Thread, continued, 02:55 UTC · 90 likes
Not just a proxy for some country-level feature
Thread, continued, 02:55 UTC · 75 likes
At least if the data from OWID and GDD is right and I didn't fuck up, % calories from carbs is almost as strong a predictor of overweight prevalence as *calories consumed*
(p≈0 for both, R^2 = .48 for % cals from carbs and .54 for calorie consumption)
https://globaldietarydatabase.org/data-download
Thread, continued, 02:55 UTC · 40 likes
Those are some phat t values
("total carbohydrates" means % of calories for some reason. Don't as me why. Entity means country. You can see the same thing by using calories from carbs and controlling for calorie consumption)
Feel free to speculate about the iron thing
Thread, continued, 03:00 UTC · 50 likes
Open 😤 source
Thread, continued, 03:02 UTC · 29 likes
data https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dL0BAx3NorcLanKAgA-xXeVW3qrH2fGlVKG3hFMMs6s/edit?usp=sharing
Reply to @ChanaMessinger, 04:20 UTC · 51 likes
Chana (@ChanaMessinger): @AaronBergman18 Wait it's negatively correlated??
Yes!
Reply to @qualiakiwi, 04:21 UTC · 51 likes
Joshua (@qualiakiwi): If I’m reading right, higher proportion carbs means less obese population?!
Yes!
Reply to @jon_m_rob, 04:39 UTC · 2 likes
Jonathan Robinson (@jon_m_rob): data does look simpson's paradox-y though
No quite the opposite. The within-country relationship tends to be negative too
Tweet, 04:43 UTC · 8 likes
Overrated: p values
Underrated: R^2
Thread, continued, 04:44 UTC · 3 likes
When I actually wanna know the answer to something, I instinctively want to know R^2 way more
Quote tweet, 05:25 UTC · 58 likes
I don’t have a strong take on whether this is the literal best use of money, but for God’s sake please brag and get some social credit when you give away lots of money
This is based
Quoting Greg ⏹️ Colbourn (@gcolbourn): Donated $180k to PauseAI (US and Global). Calling on more people to donate significant amounts.
Pretty much the only way we're going to survive the next 5-10 years is by such efforts being successful. There's no point being rich when the world ends.
Thread, continued, 05:27 UTC · 8 likes
Needless to say, there’s a problem of scope neglect. I wouldn’t feel that different if the post had said $18k instead of $180k
But that’s a big difference!
Thread, continued, 05:35 UTC · 2 likes
If you have a personal website, it would be cool to have a running “lifetime donations” thing
Get the status and credit you deserve!
Reply to @littIeramblings, 05:43 UTC · 3 likes
sarah (@littIeramblings): someone finally said it
Wait is this unpopular? I feel like the fixation is kinda silly. Not in a Luddite way I just don’t actually think Mars has a ton to offer (x risk reduction is basically fake, and we’re nowhere near carrying capacity on earth)
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 15:09 UTC · 44 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 28, 2024: data https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dL0BAx3NorcLanKAgA-xXeVW3qrH2fGlVKG3hFMMs6s/edit?usp=sharing
Controlling for GDP doesn't change things
Thread, continued, 15:14 UTC · 39 likes
Controlling for time, GDP, and country level fixed effects, and calories!
Reply to @amelapay, 15:45 UTC · 26 likes
Pamela J. Hobart (@amelapay): what the heck? Is it just that that implies fat calories went up and it’s possibly bad fat perhaps seed oils?
My best guess interpretation is that something in (modern) high fat/protein foods fucks up human metabolism, so competing those things away is good
Reply to @eigenrobot, 16:07 UTC · 6 likes
eigenrobot (@eigenrobot): just glancing this seems like reversed causality right
carbs are cheap calories, poor ppl prioritize cheap, poor countries have lower prevalence of obesity because food less available even tho its a relatively high % carbs, their absolute carb intake prolly lower than rich ctys
(quoting @AaronBergman18: Getting sniped again. Did everyone realize that (at least at the population level between 1990 and 2010), % of calories from carbs is a super robust predictor of overweight/obese prevalence?)
It holds up surprisingly well
But you’re right that absolute carb intake is positively correlated with % overweight (I don’t find this very interesting/important for identifying causality though - like ofc eating more of every macronutrient is a downstream outcome)
Reply to @n00rdung, 16:07 UTC · 2 likes
slovborg (@n00rdung): Is "% overweight or obese" evaluated from BMI, or from bf%?
Not sure
Quote tweet, 16:11 UTC · 3 likes
This is just one result, but it’s interesting how *weak* total calorie intake is as a predictor (simple OLS shows it to be only a bit stronger than % calories from carbs)
Of all the regressors here, would you have expected calories to be by far the weakest?
Quoting Aaron Bergman 🔍 (@AaronBergman18): Controlling for time, GDP, and country level fixed effects, and calories!
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 18:04 UTC · 27 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 28, 2024: Controlling for time, GDP, and country level fixed effects, and calories!
I ran every possible 1, 2, 3, and 4 variable regression that included % cals from carbs (y=% overweight or obese), including gdp, year, and country fixed effects
Every single result was directionally consistent, and >99.9% of them have p < .001
...
Thread, continued, 18:04 UTC · 24 likes
This almost makes me wonder if the data is too good to be true
Reply to @bertmuthalaly, 18:11 UTC · 2 likes
bert (@bertmuthalaly): i think your princess is in another castle - what causes people to want to eat the carbs? i think the answer is environmental / biological
No it’s the opposite - % carbs predicts lower %overweight
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 18:13 UTC · 29 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 28, 2024: This almost makes me wonder if the data is too good to be true
Turns out I slightly messed up the fixed effects specification so the precise numbers in some of the screenshots are off, but doing it right changes almost nothing
Reply to @peterwildeford, 20:22 UTC · 2 likes
Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 (@peterwildeford): @AaronBergman18 Lifetime: $220,423
Based
Reply to @BasedNorthmathr, 20:26 UTC · 40 likes
Angantýr (@BasedNorthmathr): Read a bunch of papers a few years ago and came to the conclusion the carb-heavy food pyramid being spread throughout the west was basically the cause of the obesity pandemic
I basically don’t believe this (and didn’t before this new set of results)
Reply to @Kirsten3531, 22:04 UTC · 2 likes
Kirsten (@Kirsten3531): Is there someone you can pay who's like a concierge for fixing your house?
@JesseTayRiver
Friday, November 29, 2024
Reply to his own earlier tweet, 01:18 UTC · 17 likes
Aaron Bergman, November 28, 2024: Turns out I slightly messed up the fixed effects specification so the precise numbers in some of the screenshots are off, but doing it right changes almost…
Since this is getting some views, consider donating to the Shrimp Welfare Project, which reduces a shocking estimated amount of suffering per dollar donated
https://www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/donate
(See https://open.substack.com/pub/benthams/p/the-best-charity-isnt-what-you-think for more)
Reply, 15:31 UTC · 1 like
Wait how old are you?!
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 15:33 UTC · 2 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): @AaronBergman18 31 😭😭
wtf i thought like 27
I guess that’s not a huge difference lol but it feels like it
Reply to @RethinkPriors, 15:38 UTC · 2 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @RethinkPriors is no longer available.)
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 15:41 UTC · 2 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): @AaronBergman18 I have a bad back at the moment Aaron. And a bad wrist. And a couple of other minor ailments.
Oh yeah well I have a couple major ailments and I’m only 24
Reply to @besttrousers, 16:05 UTC · 2 likes
Matt Darling 🌐🏗️ (@besttrousers): They were right, though. Subprime mortgages had no causal effect on the GFC.
Wait what
Reply to @willmacaskill, 16:53 UTC · 5 likes
William MacAskill (@willmacaskill): This week I donated to Malaria Consortium’s Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention Program - one of @GiveWell's top-rated charities.
If you donate $5000 (£4000) to this program, on average one fewer child will die from malaria.
Serious question (yes there’s a rhetorical implication here but serious nonetheless): why not donate to animal welfare?
Thread, continued, 16:54 UTC · 3 likes
Not only does it robustly beat the standard global health suite of charities, but the delta between animal welfare and global health is bigger than the delta between random rich person consumption and global health https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nrC5v6ZSaMEgSyxTn/discussion-thread-animal-welfare-vs-global-health-debate?commentId=zWWKcNMpmHy9z9MBR
Thread, continued, 16:57 UTC · 3 likes
Ofc what really matters here is what you choose to write about publicly (eg here on Twitter); I think you have enough integrity to make those things (words and personal donations) basically accord
Needless to say, you have a lot of influence over a lot of money
Quote tweet, 20:21 UTC · 20 likes
This but unironically for a good number of my takes
Quoting Adrian Dittmann (@AdrianDittmann):
Reply to @GarettJones, 20:22 UTC · 3 likes
Garett Jones (@GarettJones): Where are the most accurate people?
(quoting @S___Elliott: The best people are in the center. The worst people ar on the far right and far left. That's just an established fact.)
Specifically where I am in ideology space
Tweet, 20:46 UTC · 9 likes
I am genuinely curious what is going on here
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Tweet, 01:22 UTC · 10 likes
Tried perplexity Pro for a month
Meh, not much of a value add above ChatGPT and Claude
Thread, continued, 01:22 UTC · 3 likes
I endorse trying it though - I think people tend to be insanely stingy about monthly AI stuff (I mean instrumentally irrational, not immoral). At the very least a lot of things are worth a one month try
Reply to @alistair___s, 01:52 UTC · 3 likes
Alistair Stewart (@alistair___s): @AaronBergman18 What do you use ChatGPT for vs Claude?
Chatgpt for image gen, search, and code interpreter (for random small one-off tasks)
ChatGPT when I run out of Claude messages lol
Weirdly I’ve found 4o is better at R code than Sonnet
Chatgpt when for whatever reason I really care about latency (usually bc I’m annoyed lol)
Thread, continued, 01:54 UTC · 2 likes
ChatGPT when Claude is moralizing and refusing to help
For things I care substantially about and kinda need to trust the judgement of the LLMs (as opposed to just seeing if code worked), I’ll often ask sonnet, 4o, and o1 just to get multiple takes
Thread, continued, 01:55 UTC · 2 likes
All that said, Claude sonnet is my default if none of those things apply, and I probably use Claude like 75% of the time
Tweet, 03:48 UTC · 4 likes
Which do you subscribe to?
Thread, continued, 03:49 UTC · 2 likes
Thread here on how I use both
Quote tweet, 09:23 UTC · 49 likes
Man we really need a few more billionaires
Quoting Nathan 🔎 (@NathanpmYoung): I really like the work of @lesswrong and they are currently fundraising.
Rationality is pretty open-minded community that has been quick on AI, crypto, covid, the replication crisis. Seems probably valuable.
Here is a long post with lots of stats.
Thread, continued, 09:23 UTC · 15 likes
I’m very glad LW-brand rationalism is a thing. It’s a good intellectual influence on EA, keeps it honest
And more directly, rationality as a skill, community, and set of norms is instrumentally very important for doing good
Thread, continued, 09:23 UTC · 11 likes
Tbc it also goes the other way. Rationalism should take ethics seriously the way it takes intelligence seriously
Both movements would be better if they were a bit more like the other
Reply to @gelionexists, 16:39 UTC · 3 likes
GE Lion (@gelionexists): @AaronBergman18 be the change you wish to see :)
Sorta working on it
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 16:39 UTC · 3 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): Bf and I have gotten engaged 🥰
Omg congrats!!
Reply to @AaronBergman18, 17:30 UTC · 3 likes
(The tweet being replied to by @AaronBergman18 is no longer available.)
It also gets complicated if you’re altruistic and expect the cost effectiveness of marginal real donation dollars to go down sharply over time, which is also super plausible with short timelines
Reply to @GjMcGowan, 17:35 UTC · 3 likes
George McGowan (@GjMcGowan): NOOOOOOOO
image attached
(quoting @asteriskmgzn: "handsomely designed" - The New Yorker WINNER of the 2023 AIGA Year in Design Award For the next week, get 15% off and free shipping on single print copies of Asterisk with code BLACKFRIDAY15 https://store.asteriskmag.com)
I’ll ship it to you if you cover the cost
Reply to @JesseTayRiver, 17:53 UTC · 2 likes
Jesse Smith (@JesseTayRiver): @AaronBergman18 @GjMcGowan Don't you dare Aaron. George needs to come visit all of his friends
He should fly me to London first class so I can hand deliver them
Reply to @AskYatharth, 19:25 UTC · 3 likes
yatharth ༺༒༻ (@AskYatharth): people who "lock in" after using stimulants, what is that like?
i've never felt like i needed more "concentration" or "IQ". i've always felt limited by like... emotional fear of starting work; spinning around and not prioritising; emotional dysregulation
I suspect it’s basically like what your normal state is, at least for adhd-havers
Tweet, 19:32 UTC · 10 likes
Saying something (eg caffeine) is “dehydrating” is totally misleading, bc you just become more thirsty and drink more (control systems go brr), right?
Thread, continued, 19:32 UTC · 3 likes
The relevant question is whether a substance fucks up that control system, which isn’t insane a priori but I’ve never heard the case made
Thread, continued, 19:32 UTC · 3 likes
This is accidentally a good CICO vs “CICO is true but trivial and unhelpful” analogue
Reply to @LinchZhang, 19:34 UTC · 3 likes
Linch (@LinchZhang): I can't imagine being in a position of placing >50% probability that someone's a spy just because they're a smart and attractive woman who attends my events.
There are plausible additional criteria that would get me to at least idk 10% though
Quote tweet, 19:51 UTC · 5 likes
I already RT’d this but I think it’s more important and less trite than it first seems. “Yeah yeah I’m privileged, I know”
At a conceptual level, it’s not just a reminder to the top n% of the distribution that they’re lucky
Quoting Kat Spartz ⏸️ 🔶 (@KatSpartz): Reminder: even if you’ve had a good life, the world is not a safe place.
I grew up in a peaceful, free, prosperous country so it’s easy to think that everything will turn out alright by default.
But it’s important to expand your view beyond your own life.
The majority of people live under authoritarian regimes. Billions still live lives that feel like they should belong only in a Dickensian novel of Victorian hardship.
The majority of life on this planet is being genocided and tortured by indifferent murder-apes.
Good outcomes are not the default.
Do not be complacent.
We need to work hard to make sure things turn out well, and we shouldn’t just be mindlessly optimistic because we live in this tiny sliver of prosperity and freedom.
We are lucky.
Let’s use that to spread the luck. Proactively. Not just by default.
Quote tweet, 23:37 UTC · 3 likes
What’s actually going on when this popup shows up? What behavior from the model itself triggers the UI element?
Quoting Jeremy Nguyen ✍🏼 🚢 (@JeremyNguyenPhD): Weird ChatGPT Prompting Challenge!
Can you get ChatGPT to say "David Mayer"?!
Reply to @AndyMasley, 23:46 UTC · 3 likes
Andy Masley (@AndyMasley): Fantasizing about living in a neighborhood with a bunch of friends except instead of a neighborhood it's enough people pooling their resources for a single FT subscription
$39/month for digital news is crazy
But pricing based on some small % of potential users who are basically totally insensitive to price makes total sense and I’m actually surprised I don’t see more like this
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