Astral Codex Ten Podcast

“Literal Banana” on Carcinization writes Against Automaticity, which they describe as: An explanation of why tricks like priming, nudge, the placebo effect, social contagion, the “emotional inception” model of advertising, most “cognitive biases,” and any field with “behavioral” in its name are not real. My summary (as always, read the real thing to keep me honest): for a lot of the ‘90s and ‘00s, social scientists were engaged in ttthe project of proving “automaticity”, the claim that most human decisions are unconscious/unreasoned/automatic and therefore bad. Cognitive biases, social priming, advertising science, social contagion research, “nudges”, etc, were all part of this grand agenda. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/heres-why-automaticity-is-real-actually 

The podcast discusses theories of fetishes and their implications for AI, with testable predictions. It explores the origins and nature of fetishes, including personal experiences and testable predictions related to spanking fetishes. The speaker discusses gender ideology, puberty blockers, and individual choice, expressing disagreement with their use. It also touches on the challenges of including feet in character images for an app. Lastly, it explores the impact of sexual education on children and the potential effects of hiding gender cues.

Discussion on the failure of LK99 experiment in prediction markets and the reliance on media hype rather than expert opinion. Results of a prediction market tournament and profiles of top bettors. Exploring the concept of prediction markets and limitations in predicting the future. Discussion on the profitability of algorithmic prediction platform and predictions for the 2024 US presidential nominations. Various topics including Trump's weight bet, grants from EA Charity Long Term Future Fund, and AI forecasting.

A speaker critically reviews 'Why Nations Fail', highlighting the authors' academic papers. They discuss the role of political institutions in economic growth, instrumental variables in establishing causal relationships, academic success in 'Colonial Origins', rarity of sustained growth, and effectiveness of humanitarian interventions.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for ACX meetup organizers. Volunteers have arranged meetups in 169 cities around the world, from Baghdad to Bangalore to Buenos Aires. You can find the list below, in the following order: Africa & Middle East Asia-Pacific Europe North America South America You can see a map of all the events on the LessWrong community page. You can also see a searchable sheet at this Airtable link. Within each region, it’s alphabetized first by country, then by city. For instance, the first entry in Europe is Vienna, Austria, and the first entry for Germany is Berlin. Each region and country has its own header. The USA is the exception where it is additionally sorted by state, with states having their own subheaders. Hopefully this is clear. You can also just have your web browser search for your city by pressing ctrl+f and typing it if you’re on Windows, or command+f and typing if you’re on Mac. If you’re on Linux, I assume you can figure this out. Scott will provisionally be attending the meetup in Berkeley. ACX meetups coordinator Skyler will provisionally be attending Boston, Cavendish, Burlington, Berlin, Bremen, Amsterdam, Cardiff, London, and Berkeley. Some of the biggest ones might be announced on the blog, regardless of whether or not Scott or Skyler attends.

Original post here. And I forgot to highlight a link to the directory of dating docs. Table Of Contents 1: Comments That Remain At Least Sort Of Against Dating Docs 2: Comments Concerned That Dating Docs Are Bad For Status Or Signaling 3: Comments About Orthodox Judaism And Other Traditional Cultures 4: Comments Including Research 5: Comments By People With Demographically Unusual Relationships 6: Comments About The Five Fake Sample Profiles 7: Things I Changed My Mind About https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-dating

On the fetish post, I discussed people who had some early sexual experience - like seeing a sexy cartoon character - and reacted in some profound way, like becoming a furry. Sometimes people have described this as a “critical window” for sexuality (similar to the “critical period” in language learning?) where young children “imprint” on sexual experiences - and then can’t un-imprint on them later, even when they see many examples of sex that don’t involve cartoon animals. One of my distant cousins won't eat tomatoes. His parents say when he was very young, he bit into a cherry tomato and it exploded into goo in his mouth, and he was so upset he wouldn't eat tomatoes from then on. Now he’s in his 30s and still hates them. Is this fairly described as a “critical window” for food preferences? https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/more-thoughts-on-critical-windows

Scott Young writes about Seven Expert Opinions I Agree With That Most People Don’t. I like most of them, but #6, Children don’t learn languages faster than adults, deserves a closer look. Some people imagine babies have some magic language ability that lets them pick up their first language easily, even as we adults struggle through verb conjugations to pick up our second. But babies are embedded in a family of first-language speakers with no other options for communication. If an English-speaking adult was placed in a monolingual Spanish family, in a part of Spain with no English speakers, after a few years they might find they’d learned Spanish “easily” too. So Scott says: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/critical-periods-for-language-much

Exploring the implications of fetish research on understanding AI and AI alignment. Discussion on autogynephilia fetishes, BDSM, and lactation fetishes. Examining evolution's alignment strategy and human instincts regarding sex. Exploring the formation of fetishes and possible explanations. Connecting the formation of categories in fetishes to morality and broader moral systems. Exploring generalization and its connection to fetishes, including insights into AI category generalization. Mention of support for the $80,000 podcast and details about a narrated audiobook.

Exploring the effects of fake robotic crab spider attacks on bumblebees, emotional capacity and navigation in bees, the honeycomb conjecture and honeybee construction, adaptations and brain circuitry in bees, bee behavior and consciousness, and the significance of orfish and the intelligence of bees.