Mutual Understanding

When Emmett and Shea were disagreeing about the red pill blue pill twitter poll thing , I suggested that maybe they could have a voice conversation about it, and then we did! I wouldn’t say we really resolved things, but as far as I can tell we had fun talking to each other for a few hours about stuff like: * epistemology * Objectivism * how perception works * the free energy principle * how much...

Here’s the original poll : Poll question from my 12yo: Everyone responding to this poll chooses between a blue pill or red pill . * if > 50% of ppl choose blue pill , everyone lives * if not, red pills live and blue pills die Which do you choose? The original plan was to talk to Emmett Shear about it, but he ended up being late, so first we talked to each other. This is not the promised second hal...

Jonah and I talked a bunch about developmental models, especially Susan Loevinger ’s, using AI to do research about those models, what interests Jonah in studying them, and how it may make sense to think of LLMs in terms of developmental stages. 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

I recorded a short episode with just me with a bit of a rant about how I think about the “does intrinsic motivation drive out extrinsic motivation” parenting discourse. 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

My guest today canceled (for a great reason), so I talked about some stuff that’s been on my mind lately, including: * how I have been feeling about the election * a couple of more predictions * a little about what I’ve been reading * how I’m relating to having young kids these days This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes,...

We originally live streamed some election night results and takes to Twitter, but I wanted to post it here 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

It was great to have Ben back on the podcast to talk election predictions! 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

I had a great time learning more about the Stratfordian perspective on Shakespeare by talking to Draculaic , my twitter mutual. Divia (00:01) Hey, I'm here today with my Twitter mutual, Draculeac, who is mostly remaining anonymous. And we are here to talk about something that I touched on in the podcast with ThinkWork, but to go into it in greater depth, which is why Draculeac thinks that Shakespe...

In this podcast, Shea and I tried to hunt down a philosophical disagreement we seem to have by diving into his critique of rationality. We went off on what may or may not have been a big tangent about Internal Family Systems therapy, which I’m a big fan of, and which I think Shea thinks should have more caveats? Unfortunately, our conversation got cut short because partway through, Shea got a call...

I would say this one was hard to summarize, since we jumped around and covered a lot of ground, but I had a ton of fun finally talking to Visa from Twitter in realtime. Transcript: Divia (00:02) Hey, I'm here today with Visa from Twitter. That's mostly, I know you're on other platforms too. You have essays, you're on YouTube, but that's definitely how I think of you. When I got back on Twitter in...

Matthew Pierce, @MattPiercello on Twitter, comes on the podcast to talk about his model of how to have productive conversations. Transcript: Divia (00:02) Hey, I'm here today with Matthew Pierce, who is my Twitter mutual. He is a professional cellist, systems thinker, interested in what makes people tick and how we can solve problems together. He's MJ Piercello on Twitter. That's where Pierce and...

In this episode, I talk to my Twitter mutual Thinkwert about Twitter, the nature of whimsy, why he thinks Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and some general life stuff. Transcript: Divia (00:02) I'm here today with ThinkWert from Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter, you almost certainly also follow ThinkWert. checked and I think you were followed by 384 of the people that follow me, is a very high numb...

I got some feedback that the version of this episode I originally put up was too quiet, so I’m posting it again! Apologies for the duplication—I’m still figuring out this podcasting thing. You can find JC Cassis at jccassis.com , and can check out her own podcast, Risk . We cover a bunch of topics, including friendship in adulthood, what we owe each other, and a little about parenting. Divia (00:0...

Michael Vassar and I had this exchange on Twitter, and this podcast is a followup discussion. I think we mostly didn’t find a huge disagreement, but did cover some interesting ground. Transcript: Divia (00:02) Hey, I'm here today with Michael Vassar because we had a disagreement on Twitter that was actually from many years ago that I recently circled back to. And Michael, which is totally in chara...

In this episode, Daniel Filan and I talk about Elliot Thornley’s LessWrong post There are no coherence theorems . Some other LessWrong posts we reference include: * A stylized dialogue on John Wentworth's claims about markets and optimization * Why Not Subagents Transcript: Divia (00:03) I'm here today with Elliot Thornley, who goes by EJT on less wrong and Daniel Phylin and Elliot is currently a...

You can find JC Cassis at jccassis.com , and can check out her own podcast, Risk . We cover a bunch of topics, including friendship in adulthood, what we owe each other, and a little about parenting. Divia (00:01.721) Hey, so I'm here today with my friend, JC. And I like to say that we went to school together and if people are like, like you mean like what? And I'm like, no, all the school we went...

Jessica Ocean is on X , as is her husband Malcolm Ocean . 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

Divia Eden and Ben Goldhaber of Mutuals interviewed me about what I’ve been thinking about over the last 5 years. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. ( Link to audio on Youtube with clickable timestamps .) Topics discussed include: * what religion and spirituality might have to offer moral philosophy, AI alignment, and AI coordination * Christopher Langan's theory-of-everythi...

Sarah is a director at Nanotronics and writes on Twitter and on Substack . Timestamps [00:01:00] Why AI is probably a good thing [00:08:00] The limits of current robotics [00:13:00] Nanotronics and process improvements with AI [00:23:00] Predictions on AI [00:26:00] Input output limitations on AI models [00:35:00] Drug discovery [00:45:00] Instrumental convergence [01:05:00] Progress studies [1:13...

Coordination among 8 billion people is very tough. We're very far away from doing that with the intelligence that we have now, it's incredibly costly to send information to different people and for different people to learn about each other in order to trust each other…  we should kind of expect that people will have a lot of trouble coordinating on a big scale. But if we could then we’d grow a lo...

This episode may make more sense after reading Quintin’s LessWrong post about evolution and the sharp left turn, but I think we end up talking through most of it. Our conversation appeared as two Twitter Spaces: https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1649925920529223680?s=20 and https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1649957263535394821?s=20 This is a public episode. If you would like to discu...

Robin talks about why he thinks developments in AI will be on a continuum with civilizational progress in general, and Ronny, who is mostly trying to understand Robin, talks some about why he thinks many of the things he values about humanity aren't on track to being preserved, and that he cares about that. Video version available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-fBdPnwFrI This is a public ep...

In this episode we discuss several ‘frames’ - ways of processing and orienting to information - that are appearing in public discussions around AI, and in particular reflect on how grounded they are in longstanding debates within the AI X-Risk community. "It’s sort of like the democratic ideal where everybody's sort of out there at the public square arguing with each other, talking about the thing...

No transcript for this episode yet, but I wanted to get it out there anyway, since it can be hard to listen on Twitter Spaces. 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

Ben Weinstein-Raun And so my guess is that that fairness seems like a plausible candidate for something like an alien species might have… kind of universal, like given some sort of assumptions about how evolution worked or works. Like there is something happening that results in us making choices. And if your philosophical determinism denies that, like you're wrong. And, I think it makes about as...