Mutual Understanding

I think I said I’d link the music I made for this, but I’ve now figured out that linking the midi files directly won’t necessarily sound right (they’re rendered in a specific way in the game browser and the balance has been very off when I played them anywhere else). I have plans to make mp3s and link them, but I haven’t done that yet and wanted to post this now. I might come back later and add th...

00:00 The Rise of AI Discourse 02:38 Legislative Responses to AI Risks 05:10 The Balance of Innovation and Regulation 07:45 Discourse Dynamics in AI Safety 10:13 State Capacity and AI Governance 12:34 The Future of AI Development and Security 25:40 Reproductive Strategies in Different Climates 27:02 AI Awareness and Evaluation Challenges 28:39 The Nature of AI Goals and Behaviors 30:24 Anthropomor...

* Kave’s 4 heresies * The Ease Disease * interest rates are endogenous * me tweeting about Zizek * me on boundaries 00:00 Introduction to the Conversation 01:01 Exploring Personal Heresies 02:33 The Granite Heresy: Insurance and Value 03:23 The Stepping Heresy: Rationality and Decision Making 04:11 Caesar’s Heresy: Budgeting and Despair 05:00 The Hackers Heresy: Policies and Exploitation 06:11 The...

We waited until we got to a nontrivial puzzle, but ultimately I think mostly failed at doing much thinking in realtime in the video, because after that it was otherwise easy. I plan to keep trying though! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

* original twitter thread * The Ease Disease * Worse is Better 00:00 — Slop, Cheapness, and the Ease Disease05:23 — What Exactly Is the “Ease Disease”?12:02 — AI, Writing, and Learning by Doing15:45 — Are Phones Really Making Us Choose Ease?23:52 — When Nobody Does It the Hard Way26:41 — Streetlighting and AI Alignment30:58 — Partial Solutions and “Worse Is Better”41:15 — Desire Paths and When Thi...

00:02 Introduction and Context 00:27 The Arday Controversy 04:08 The Impact of Academia’s Response 12:14 Postpartum Mental Health and Societal Reactions 14:19 The State of Education and Understanding Fractions 23:21 Cultural Reflections on Data Centers and Society 23:25 Political Landscape and AI Data Centers 25:54 Data Centers: Environmental Impact and Community Concerns 28:41 Nuclear Power vs. D...

I came into this expecting we could work through some puzzles together, but the beginning had a lot of content and I think one very easy puzzle? But we recorded it, so here it is anyway :-). It’s also on YouTube if that’s easier 00:00 Introduction to the Mermaid Mask Game 02:58 Gameplay Mechanics and Initial Impressions 05:56 Exploring the Story and Characters 09:03 Advancing the Plot and Puzzles...

I briefly reviewed the Meta glasses (tldr; I think they aren’t there yet), we talked about the nature of certainty, how ethics isn’t a truce, more than usual about geometric rationality , and at the end about why Shea doesn’t like the name X for Twitter. 00:00 Reunion Reflections and Family Adventures 02:52 Exploring New Tech: Meta Classes and Smart Glasses 06:02 The Vision Pro Experience: A Game...

This is my first time uploading video to Substack, so I hope it works! Nonstandard episode format where Kave and I play Murder at the Birch Tree Theater together. I cross posted this one to YouTube , in case anyone would rather watch there. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

We catch up on the discourse as usual, and then Shea helps me conceptualize some of my rants. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

We recorded this ages ago, and I’m just now getting around to posting it, sorry! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

We recorded this ages ago, and I’m just now getting around to posting it, sorry! And sorry about the audio. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

For some reason, Riverside didn’t generate chapter topics for me this time, so they aren’t here, sorry! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

00:00 Introduction to the Discussion 03:38 Wealth, Luck, and Property Rights 04:53 Self-Esteem and Cultural Identity 06:17 Cultural Degradation and Ethno-Nationalism 09:27 Owing to Evolution 10:30 The Role of Evolution in Human Existence 12:36 Credit and Value Creation 14:40 AI and Evolutionary Debt 15:49 Rand’s Critique of Rawls 22:08 Judging Reality and Human Values 23:58 Gratitude Towards Evolu...

I think we got somewhere more by the end, so if you listen to part of it, I recommend starting near the end! You can find Shreeda here . 00:00 Introduction to Intentional Parenting 03:06 Understanding Unschooling vs. Homeschooling 05:59 Daily Life in an Unschooling Family 08:55 Critique of Traditional Schooling 12:01 Personal Experiences with Schooling 14:59 The Role of Relationships in Parenting...

Some things I said I’d link: * Shea and Emmett talk red pill blue pill * Shea and me talking about metaphysics of value Some timestamps: 00:00 Revisiting the Red Pill Blue Pill Discourse 09:20 Ethics as a Truce in Politics 20:22 The Role of Free Speech in Society 25:51 Court Packing and Political Norms 32:10 Gerrymandering: The Nature of Representation 40:05 The Role of Honesty in Political Discou...

I hope to get back into recording more regularly soon, but no promises. Life has been pretty busy for me lately. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Apologies for taking forever to edit this podcast we recorded or Feb 7. We talked about the Iran situation some which was all before the US attacked, but there was some other stuff too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Relatively rambling as usual, especially the second half I think. I hope some of you enjoy it! Some links: * Kave on X * Kave’s blog (with his excellent Inkhaven posts) * some tweets of mine about being stuck in puzzles * Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack * Scott Whiskers * Mutropolis * Golden Idol games This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acce...

Last week, I went to see Matt Bateman and Aaron Stupple talk about their parenting disagreements at The Montessorium , the (pretty new!) school Matt created. I enjoyed their conversation, wanted to hear even more, asked them if they’d be up for coming on my podcast, and they did! Probably the best place to find more is on X.com, and here are a few more links too: * Aaron’s book, The Sovereign Chil...

A bunch of this was me trying to understanding Shea’s metaphysics of value and also where he sees property rights as coming from. It may have been more repetitive than usual, since I kept asking him to explain stuff again, but it was helpful for me at least! We reference this series of blog posts about proposed reforms to zoning laws. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this wit...

Shea started out talking about recognizing thought processes as value-laden, and then we got into ~psych debugging a way I think some of my thought processes haven’t been respecting what I think are the correct internal property rights. Shea updated somewhat about what I mean when I’m saying things in an IFS framing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscriber...

Some things we mentioned include: * A Positive Account of Property Rights * the original instructions for we-ness * someone's write-up of the we-ship experiment that Malcolm ran (the one where we did the "goodbye for now, Malcolm") Malcolm also posted the same conversation but with video to his YouTube channel if you want that! I’ve included some automatically generated chapter timestamps in case...

I probably should have split this up into two episodes, but instead it’s all together. The first part of the conversation is basically about how Shea thinks military conflicts should work in the modern world, with the recent Israel and Iran war as a jumping off point. We talked about The West Wing speech about a proportional response. I tried to summarize what I thought Shea was saying about his t...

I had a fun time catching up with my former cohost! Some links we mentioned: * Ben's website * Ben’s substack * Good Strategy Bad Strategy * my blog This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com