LW - Monthly Roundup #17: April 2024 by Zvi
The Nonlinear Library: LessWrong
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Reassessing Water Usage and Social Dynamics
This chapter examines how higher water pressure in showers can actually lead to decreased overall water consumption, backed by an experiment with timers to promote shorter shower lengths. It also delves into broader themes such as social dynamics, self-promotion, and critiques of job protectionism in the face of advancing technology like self-driving cars.
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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Monthly Roundup #17: April 2024, published by Zvi on April 16, 2024 on LessWrong.
As always, a lot to get to. This is everything that wasn't in any of the other categories.
Bad News
You might have to find a way to actually enjoy the work.
Greg Brockman (President of OpenAI): Sustained great work often demands enjoying the process for its own sake rather than only feeling joy in the end result. Time is mostly spent between results, and hard to keep pushing yourself to get to the next level if you're not having fun while doing so.
Yeah. This matches my experience in all senses. If you don't find a way to enjoy the work, your work is not going to be great.
This is the time. This is the place.
Guiness Pig: In a discussion at work today:
"If you email someone to ask for something and they send you an email trail showing you that they've already sent it multiple times, that's a form of shaming, don't do that."
Others nodding in agreement while I try and keep my mouth shut.
JFC…
Goddess of Inflammable Things: I had someone go over my head to complain that I was taking too long to do something. I showed my boss the email where they had sent me the info I needed THAT morning along with the repeated requests for over a month. I got accused by the accuser of "throwing them under the bus".
You know what these people need more of in their lives?
Jon Stewart was told by Apple, back when he had a show on AppleTV+, that he was not allowed to interview FTC Chair Lina Khan.
This is a Twitter argument over whether a recent lawsuit is claiming Juul intentionally evaded age restrictions to buy millions in advertising on websites like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and 'games2girls.com' that are designed for young children, or whether they bought those ads as the result of 'programmatic media buyers' like AdSense 'at market price,' which would… somehow make this acceptable? What? The full legal complaint is here.
I find it implausible that this activity was accidental, and Claude agreed when given the text of the lawsuit.
I strongly agree with Andrew Sullivan, in most situations playing music in public that others can hear is really bad and we should fine people who do it until they stop. They make very good headphones, if you want to listen to music then buy them. I am willing to make exceptions for groups of people listening together, but on your own? Seriously, what the hell.
Democrats somewhat souring on all of electric cars, perhaps to spite Elon Musk?
The amount of own-goaling by Democrats around Elon Musk is pretty incredible.
New York Post tries to make 'resenteeism' happen, as a new name for people who hate their job staying to collect a paycheck because they can't find a better option, but doing a crappy job. It's not going to happen.
Alice Evans points out that academics think little of sending out, in the latest cse, thousands of randomly generated fictitious resumes, wasting quite a lot of people's time and introducing a bunch of noise into application processes. I would kind of be fine with that if IRBs let you run ordinary obviously responsible experiments in other ways as well, as opposed to that being completely insane in the other direction.
If we have profound ethical concerns about handing volunteers a survey, then this is very clearly way worse.
Germany still will not let stores be open on Sunday to enforce rest. Which got even more absurd now that there are fully automated supermarkets, which are also forced to close. I do think this is right. Remember that on the Sabbath, one not only cannot work. One cannot spend money. Having no place to buy food is a feature, not a bug, forcing everyone to plan ahead, this is not merely about guarding against unfair advantage. Either go big, or leave home.
I also notice how forcing everyone to close on Sunday is rather unfriendl...
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Monthly Roundup #17: April 2024, published by Zvi on April 16, 2024 on LessWrong.
As always, a lot to get to. This is everything that wasn't in any of the other categories.
Bad News
You might have to find a way to actually enjoy the work.
Greg Brockman (President of OpenAI): Sustained great work often demands enjoying the process for its own sake rather than only feeling joy in the end result. Time is mostly spent between results, and hard to keep pushing yourself to get to the next level if you're not having fun while doing so.
Yeah. This matches my experience in all senses. If you don't find a way to enjoy the work, your work is not going to be great.
This is the time. This is the place.
Guiness Pig: In a discussion at work today:
"If you email someone to ask for something and they send you an email trail showing you that they've already sent it multiple times, that's a form of shaming, don't do that."
Others nodding in agreement while I try and keep my mouth shut.
JFC…
Goddess of Inflammable Things: I had someone go over my head to complain that I was taking too long to do something. I showed my boss the email where they had sent me the info I needed THAT morning along with the repeated requests for over a month. I got accused by the accuser of "throwing them under the bus".
You know what these people need more of in their lives?
Jon Stewart was told by Apple, back when he had a show on AppleTV+, that he was not allowed to interview FTC Chair Lina Khan.
This is a Twitter argument over whether a recent lawsuit is claiming Juul intentionally evaded age restrictions to buy millions in advertising on websites like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and 'games2girls.com' that are designed for young children, or whether they bought those ads as the result of 'programmatic media buyers' like AdSense 'at market price,' which would… somehow make this acceptable? What? The full legal complaint is here.
I find it implausible that this activity was accidental, and Claude agreed when given the text of the lawsuit.
I strongly agree with Andrew Sullivan, in most situations playing music in public that others can hear is really bad and we should fine people who do it until they stop. They make very good headphones, if you want to listen to music then buy them. I am willing to make exceptions for groups of people listening together, but on your own? Seriously, what the hell.
Democrats somewhat souring on all of electric cars, perhaps to spite Elon Musk?
The amount of own-goaling by Democrats around Elon Musk is pretty incredible.
New York Post tries to make 'resenteeism' happen, as a new name for people who hate their job staying to collect a paycheck because they can't find a better option, but doing a crappy job. It's not going to happen.
Alice Evans points out that academics think little of sending out, in the latest cse, thousands of randomly generated fictitious resumes, wasting quite a lot of people's time and introducing a bunch of noise into application processes. I would kind of be fine with that if IRBs let you run ordinary obviously responsible experiments in other ways as well, as opposed to that being completely insane in the other direction.
If we have profound ethical concerns about handing volunteers a survey, then this is very clearly way worse.
Germany still will not let stores be open on Sunday to enforce rest. Which got even more absurd now that there are fully automated supermarkets, which are also forced to close. I do think this is right. Remember that on the Sabbath, one not only cannot work. One cannot spend money. Having no place to buy food is a feature, not a bug, forcing everyone to plan ahead, this is not merely about guarding against unfair advantage. Either go big, or leave home.
I also notice how forcing everyone to close on Sunday is rather unfriendl...
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