Astral Codex Ten Podcast

I've been trying to delve deeper into predictive processing theories of the brain, and I keep coming across Karl Friston's work on "free energy". At first I felt bad for not understanding this. Then I realized I wasn't alone. There's an entire not-understanding-Karl-Friston internet fandom, complete with its own parody Twitter account and Markov blanket memes. From the journal Neuropsychoanalysis (which based on its name I predict is a center of expertise in not understanding things): At Columbia's psychiatry department, I recently led a journal club for 15 PET and fMRI researhers, PhDs and MDs all, with well over $10 million in NIH grants between us, and we tried to understand Friston's 2010 Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper – for an hour and a half. There was a lot of mathematical knowledge in the room: three statisticians, two physicists, a physical chemist, a nuclear physicist, and a large group of neuroimagers – but apparently we didn't have what it took. I met with a Princeton physicist, a Stanford neurophysiologist, a Cold Springs Harbor neurobiologist to discuss the paper. Again blanks, one and all.

I. The big news in psychiatry this month is Cipriani et al's Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. It purports to be the last word in the "do antidepressants work?" question, and a first (or at least early) word in the under-asked "which antidepressants are best?" question. This study is very big, very sophisticated, and must have taken a very impressive amount of work. It meta-analyzes virtually every RCT of antidepressants ever done – 522 in all – then throws every statistical trick in the book at them to try to glob together into a coherent account of how antidepressants work. It includes Andrea Cipriani, one of the most famous research psychiatrists in the world – and John Ioannidis, one of the most famous statisticians. It's been covered in news sources around the world: my favorite headline is Newsweek's unsubtle Antidepressants Do Work And Many More People Should Take Them, but honorable mention to Reuters' Study Seeks To End Antidepressant Debate: The Drugs Do Work.

Thanks to everyone who commented on the post about technological unemployment. From Onyomi: Not saying I necessarily think this is what is going on, but one simple possible explanation for why technological unemployment could happen now when it never happened much in the past could be quite simply the greatly accelerated pace of change. For most of history, technological change was very, very slow. The past few hundred years we've moved increasingly to a place where each new generation has to learn to function in a world different from the one their parents grew up in. We could now be moving to a world where each generation has to learn to function in multiple worlds over the course of a lifetimes, which may stretch the limits of human adaptability.

[Taken from here.] I. Deep in the forest, thousands of miles from civilization, there is an isolated village. It has not seen contact with any other humans for a long time. It is, however, a pleasant and flourishing community, which strongly values freedom and entrepreneurship. There is, however, one tiny quirk. In this village, there is a ritual. Every year, a boy who reaches 18 is cannibalized. It brings the rains, or something. But despite its taste for cannibalism, this village wishes to live in accordance with libertarian principles. Thus, they will only cannibalize the boy if he consents. In order to encourage this to happen, they will put tremendous social pressure on the boy. All through his youth, they will tell him they believe the future of the village depends on his consenting. His parents tell him that he would bring great shame on the household if he refused, which is true. The choice nevertheless rests with the boy, and whatever he chooses will be respected. The parents and villagers attempt to persuade him, but never lie to him, and make clear that they would never force his choice. However: if the boy refuses to be cannibalized, the village has a backup plan. The boy will be blacklisted. No shopkeeper will sell him food, no hotel will give him a room, no hospital will treat him, no employer will hire him. After all, under libertarian principles, nobody can be told how to use their property. The boy's parents, ashamed of him, will turn him out of the house with no money. He may leave the village, but it is certain death, for thousands of miles of desolate wolf-infested wilderness stand between him and other humans and he has no food. (The wilderness is also privately-owned, and he cannot pay the admission fee.) He is shunned and despised, left to wander the streets in a futile search for shelter and sustenance. However, no force is exercised against him. He is never touched or arrested. He is treated as nonexistent, as the villagers await his demise. So the boy starves to death. The villagers then cannibalize his emaciated corpse, reasoning that they cannot be compelled to give him a dignified burial (plus he died on private property, collapsing in a flowerbed).

[I am not an economist or an expert on this topic. This is my attempt to figure out what economists and experts think so I can understand the issue, and I'm writing it down to speed your going through the same process. If you have more direct access to economists and experts, feel free to ignore this] Technological unemployment is a hard topic because there are such good arguments on both sides. The argument against: we've had increasing technology for centuries now, people have been predicting that technology will put them out of work since the Luddites, and it's never come true. Instead, one of two things have happened. Either machines have augmented human workers, allowing them to produce more goods at lower prices, and so expanded industries so dramatically that overall they employ more people. Or displaced workers from one industry have gone into another – stable boys becoming car mechanics, or the like. There are a bunch of well-known theoretical mechanisms that compensate for technological displacement – see Vivarelli for a review. David Autor gives a vivid example:

Those yearly "predictions for next year" posts are starting to reach the limit of their usefulness. Not much changes from year to year, and most of what does change is hard to capture in objective probabilistic predictions. So in honor of this blog's five year anniversary, here are some predictions for the next five years. All predictions to be graded on 2/15/2023:

[Previously in series: Search Terms That Have Led People To This Blog and More Search Terms That Have Led People To This Blog. Content warning: profanity, rape, and other unfiltered access to the consciousness of the Internet] Sometimes I look at what search terms lead people to SSC. Sometimes it's the things you would think – "slate star codex", "rationality", the names of medications I've written about. Other times it's a little weirder:

Last post I thanked some of the people who have contributed to this blog. But once again, it's time to honor some of the most important contributors: the many people who give valuable feedback on everything I write. Here's a short sample of some of…most interesting. I'm avoiding names and links to avoid pile-ons. Some slightly edited for readability. "A cowardly autistic cuckolded deviant Jew who uses his IQ to rationalize away wisdom" "He's part of the self-declared 'Rationalish Community'. Imagine the ridiculous level of self-regard implied by that. Picture cb2 with a graduate degree. Scott Alexander, if brevity is the soul of wit, you're a witless soulsucking...

Today is the fifth anniversary of Slate Star Codex. Overall I'm very happy with how this project is going so far, and I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's made things work behind the scenes. Trike Apps generously volunteered to host me free of charge. I give them the highest praise it is possible to give a hosting company – namely, that I completely forgot about their existence until right now because I've never had to worry about anything. Special thanks to Matt Fallshaw and Cat Truscott for their kindness and patience. Bakkot has done various things behind the scenes to make the blog more useable – fixing WordPress bugs, helping with moderation tasks, and adding cool new features like the green highlights around new comments. A big part of the success of the comments section is thanks to his innovations; the remaining horribleness is mostly my fault. Rory O and Alice M have also helped with this.

The podcast explores the motivation system in lampreys and compares it to human basal ganglia. It discusses the role of dopamine in behavior, including its connection to Parkinson's and abulia. The relationship between dopamine, willpower, and engagement in high willpower requirement behaviors is explored. Additionally, the role of confidence in decision-making and motivation is discussed.