sarahconstantin's Shortform

sarahconstantin

links 4/21/25: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/04-21-2025

Pope Francis dead:
- https://apnews.com/live/pope-francis-dies-catholic-church-updates
- it's pneumonia
Gavin Leech on how he uses & doesn't use LLMs
https://www.gleech.org/llms
- he's not actually that abstemious compared to me. some differences include that he actually knows regexes fluently so doesn't use em for formatting; and that he doesn't like flattery.
- Mostly I also feel creepy using it as a replacement for directly reading a source or for writing anything I actually care about. I don't want a replacement for my own mind. My most common LLM use case is "replacement search engine", followed by "accountability buddy/cheerleader"
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/04/17/drowning-in-junk-science-is-there-any-hope-at-all/ Andrew Gelman now thinks in at least some fields the problem isn't (only) bad research methodology, it's the mindset that research is a formality you have to get through in order to do the advocacy you actually want to do.
https://malcolmocean.com/2024/01/guru-dynamics-i-can-show-you-how-to-trust-yourself/ Malcolm Ocean on self-trust is just correct, and has a wholesome goodwill that I'm very fond of. A lot of his ideas are obvious to me (having thought through a lot of the same topics independently) but I wish I lived in a world with a thousand Malcolms. He is actually interested in how minds work and how you can manage em well without self-harm or cruelty or authoritarianism; in an era when a lot of people are leaning into "maybe self-harm and cruelty and authoritarianism are good actually" he has stuck to his values, even through marriage and fatherhood.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rH492M8T8pKK5763D/agree-retort-or-ignore-a-post-from-the-future old Wei Dai post making the point that obviously one ought to be able to call in arbitration and get someone to respond to a dispute. people ought not to be allowed to simply tap out of an argument and stop responding.
- this is not what I believe.
- first of all, it goes against ordinary norms about consensual social interactions, where any party can withdraw association whenever they want unless they have made a binding commitment not to.
  - "What about courts? people can be compelled to testify."
    - Ok, cool, but that's the law of the land. Your idea for norms in a rational society is an idea, and it has neither persuaded me to accept them nor taken political power in the territory I live in.
- second of all, it is costly. Are you saying that my time and energy can be called up, indefinitely, to participate in an argument, and I have to either concede that you're "right" or keep arguing until I persuade you? what if I really don't want to be on the record saying things that I may have been pressured into saying, or confused about, especially on a sensitive topic? what if you are incredibly stubborn and refuse to be persuaded no matter how strong my arguments are?
  - "no, you get to stop, but you should have to explicitly say you are no longer participating in the discussion before you can stop."
    - well, that's better, but I still think it's too much of an imposition to require. it still takes some time and willpower to explicitly assert one is tapping out. I think it's not unreasonable to expect people to take a hint sometimes and accept silence or a change of subject as a sign of lack of interest in continuing the discussion.
- here is my position:
  - I do not commit to be accountable to just anybody for being fully logically rational.
  - I do, as a point of honor, try to avoid leaving up false or misleading information in my writing, and will try to correct it or remove it if I've found I've made a factual error. I do not want anybody to mistakenly believe a falsehood on my account.
  - But I do not commit to admitting I believe anything that I can't win an argument against. Even if (someone claims) that given other things I've said I logically must believe it. Frankly, if for whatever reason, including aesthetic and social ones, I am not willing to say something in print or out loud, then by gum you do not get to make me say it.
    - You can judge me for my choices however you like. But you don't get to compel them unless you have the literal legal or physical power to do it.
  - I also do not commit to continue engaging in conversations I don't want to, answering questions I don't want to, etc, outside of an explicit committed obligation (e.g. if it's part of my job.) I am unusually generous with my time and candor, as people go, but that is my choice, not my obligation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebo_M this is the guy responsible for the African choruses in The Lion King as well as many other movies. Close collaborator with Hans Zimmer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscari grape hyacinths are not hyacinths at all. Genus Muscari rather than Hyacinthus. (Same family though.)
- family Asparagaceae, containing asparagus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparagaceae
  - wait. I thought asparagus was a fern? no it isn't! despite their feathery fern-like leaves, asparagus ferns, tree ferns, plumosus ferns, and others are angiosperms, or flowering plants. they have seeds, not spores.
https://classicalchristian.org/the-lost-tools-of-learning-dorothy-sayers/ Dorothy Sayers' famous essay proposing a medieval-inspired "classical education" curriculum for the present day

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rH492M8T8pKK5763D/agree-retort-or-ignore-a-post-from-the-future old Wei Dai post making the point that obviously one ought to be able to call in arbitration and get someone to respond to a dispute. people ought not to be allowed to simply tap out of an argument and stop responding.

To clarify, the norms depicted in that story were partly for humor, and partly "I wonder if a society like this could actually exist." The norms are "obvious" from the perspective of the fictional author because they've lived with it all their l... (read more)