Astral Codex Ten Podcast

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/jhanas-and-the-dark-room-problem   The Dark Room Problem in neuroscience goes something like this: suppose the brain is minimizing prediction error, or free energy, or whatever. You can minimize lots of things by sitting quietly in a dark room. Everything will be very, very predictable. So how come people do other things? The usual workaround is inbuilt biolog...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/epistemic-minor-leagues [I'm traveling this week - here is an older essay I never previously got around to posting] Viral game designer Adrian Hon wrote an article about What Alternate Reality Games Can Teach Us About QAnon . It argues that people fall for QAnon because it gives them an interesting mystery. It's a place where new discoveries are always around...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/chilling-effects [Epistemic status: Extremely confused! Low confidence in all of this] I. On the recent global warming post , a commenter argued that at least fewer people would die of cold. I was prepared to dismiss this on the grounds that it couldn't possibly be enough people to matter, but, um: There are only about sixty million deaths per year total, so i...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-october [Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can't guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-kids   Ramparen writes : No one really does it because of climate change imo, that is just a neat excuse to avoid the responsibility and limitations that being a parent brings into your life Of course, this was immediately followed by some people ( 1, 2 ) saying they were seriously considering not having kids because of climate...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on-having-kids   Please Don't Give Up On Having Kids Because Of Climate Change It will probably make things worse, and there are better ways to contribute 22 hr ago   119   904     I. A recent poll finds that 39% of young people "feel uncertain" about having children because of climate change. And sure, people say a lot of things on polls,...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-modern   Thanks to everyone who commented on Whither Tartaria (currently 1079 comments). Many of you really like modern architecture, and many others of you really hate it. I appreciate most of you being able to accept disagreement on that and move on to the bigger question of why there's so much more of it now. The most interes...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-scout-mindset I. You tried Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset , but the replication crisis crushed your faith. You tried Mike Cernovich's Gorilla Mindset , but your neighbors all took out restraining orders against you. And yet, without a mindset, what separates you from the beasts ? Just in time, Julia Galef brings us The Scout Mindset (subtitle: "W...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria Imagine a postapocalyptic world. Beside the ruined buildings of our own civilization - St. Peter's Basilica, the Taj Mahal, those really great Art Deco skyscrapers - dwell savages in mud huts. The savages see the buildings every day, but they never compose legends about how they were built by the gods in a lost golden age. No, they say they th...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-september [Remember, I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can't guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read th...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lisbon-meetup-this-saturday   When: Saturday, September 18th, 5 PM Where: g uitars.record.caps , aka a suspiciously ordinary-looking tree in Parque da Pedra, Monsanto Park. Our intrepid organizer writes: "Spot the tall white guy in pink pants. There's an adjacent road with street parking, and a clearing at that point that opens onto a trail that leads to the p...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-revolt-of-the-public I. Martin Gurri's The Revolt Of The Public is from 2014, which means you might as well read the Epic of Gilgamesh. It has a second-edition-update-chapter from 2017, which means it might as well be Beowulf . The book is about how social-media-connected masses are revolting against elites, but the revolt has moved forward so...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-modi-a-political-biography   I. I have a friend who studied the history of fascism. She gets angry when people call Trump (or some other villain du jour ) fascist. "Words have meanings! Fascism isn't just any right-winger you dislike!" Maybe she takes this a little too far; by a strict definition, she's not even sure Franco qualifies. Anyway, I men...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/washington-dc-meetup-this-saturday   When: Saturday, September 11th, 5 PM Where: decent.search.hurls , aka the patio and lot around 1002 N St. NW. Who: Anyone who wants. Please feel free to come even if you feel awkward about it, even if you're not "the typical ACX reader", even if you're worried people won't like you, etc. Also, me! I'll be there on my meetup...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-unbearable-semiheaviness-of-being   I hear that Google tests prospective employees with weird vaguely-science-related riddles. If I were in charge of this, here's what I would ask: You're an American spy in Cuba. The CIA has gotten you a position refilling the water coolers in Castro's presidential palace, hoping you can poison him. But Castro's security i...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-play-in-three I. Seen on Twitter: In case you find this hard to follow: ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug that looked promising against COVID in early studies. Later it started looking less promising, and investigators found that a major supporting study was fraudulent. But by this point it had gotten popular among conspiracy theorists as...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/new-york-meetup-this-monday   When: Monday, 9/6. I'll be arriving at 5 PM but some other people might get there earlier, around 3. Where: swung.shape.shows , aka Teardrop Park in Lower Manhattan Who: Anyone who wants. Please feel free to come even if you feel awkward about it, even if you're not "the typical ACX reader", even if you're worried people won't lik...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/boston-meetup-this-sunday When: Sunday, 9/5, 5 PM Where: area.bricks.tribune , aka John F Kennedy Park in Cambridge, near the picnic tables. Who: Anyone who wants. Please feel free to come even if you feel awkward about it, even if you're not "the typical ACX reader", even if you're worried people won't like you, etc. Also, me! I'll be there on my meetups tour...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/long-covid-much-more-than-you-wanted Like everyone else, I'm trying to figure out how cautious I should be around COVID. It seems like the most important concern for young vaccinated people like myself is the risk of Long COVID symptoms, so I spent a while trying to figure out what those were. My basic conclusion is that everyone else is right, that news stori...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/on-hreha-on-behavioral-economics   Jason Hreha's article on The Death Of Behavioral Economics has been going around lately, after an experiment by behavioral econ guru Dan Ariely was discovered to be fraudulent. The article argues that this is the tip of the iceberg - looking back on the last few years of replication crisis, behavioral economics has been under...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/berkeley-meetup-this-saturday When: Saturday, August 28, at 1 PM Where: deflection.jump.puppy , aka the lawn where West Circle meets Free Speech Bikeway near the UC Berkeley parking lot. Who: Anyone who wants. Please feel free to come even if you feel awkward about it, even if you're not "the typical SSC reader", even if you're worried people won't like you, e...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-missing   [Original article: Kids Can Recover From Missing Even A Lot Of School ] I. Many commenters shared their own stories of missing lots of school and bouncing back from it. For example, Rachel E : I was unschooled until I was 15, I'm pursuing a PhD now. Catching up on the basics wasn't easy but only took a few months. Ther...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-governor Californians love long-shot bets. Actors trying to make it big in LA, tech founders chasing unicorns in San Francisco, cult leaders trying to found religions in Pasadena. In Silicon Valley, VCs turn the long-shot bet into an art: if some new startup has a 5% chance of making a billion, that's $50 million in expectation....

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantified   This post tries to quantify how much carbon is produced by various activities, lifestyle changes, and actors.      can't stress enough how approximate and unreliable these numbers are. The reason I made this chart and other people didn't isn't because I'm smarter or harder-working than they are. It's because I'm less responsible, and...

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/meetups-everywhere-2021-times-and https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QFbM5B9KfsiwqO6DvJ4D05dQitBtZ6kYDwXZ3Hj6SEc/edit#gid=1585750313 Thanks to everyone who respond to my request for ACX outdoor meetup organizers. Volunteers have arranged meetups in 170 cities around the world, including beautiful Lusk, Wyoming (population: 1,526). You can see the full lis...