sarahconstantin's Shortform

sarahconstantin

https://danfrank.ca/daniel-isms-50-ideas-for-life-i-repeatedly-share/ Dan Frank's life advice.
https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/the-tasting-day-why-buying-5-babkas Dan Frank advises holding a tasting as a genre of social event. i should do this more.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2022/03/30/fermi-estimates-and-dyson-designs/ Venkatesh Rao's idea of a "dyson design" is the sort of quantitative/heuristic thinking that involves exponentials, order-of-magnitude estimates, and similar types of "this is so big that we can neglect that" types of reasoning. Moore's Law (as a description of the world, and implications drawn from it) is in this category.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea1260 universal vaccines? mucosal vaccination in mice with some immune-stimulating antigens protects against multiple viruses & bacterial infections
https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-are-young-liberals-so-depressed
- one of my pet peeves is that people usually condemn negativity in negative terms, to the effect of "nobody likes it when you're a whiny downer." i don't believe this is an effective way to fight negative affect! it violates basic principles of vibe!
- Yglesias instead does this the right way, via inspiration. "remember We Shall Overcome, Si Se Puede, and There Is A Power In A Union? isn't hope and optimism and working for noble causes better than depression?"
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/rebuilding-our-world-with-reference-to-strong-ai.html I'm pretty much with Tyler Cowen on this; AI will be cataclysmic, on a historical scale.
- now, given that he believes this, i think it would be reasonable of him to outwardly panic a lot more. if things are probably going to be Quite Bad and it's unlikely anyone can do anything about it, you're free to have whatever reaction you like, including putting it out of your mind and spending your time on pleasant things, or running around panicking like a chicken with its head cut off. it's hard for me to see the point of sober Smart Guy talk, under potentially cataclysmic conditions; it's so much aversive effort for so little reward.
https://danluu.com/julialang/ the Julia language is buggy
https://alexaraki.substack.com/p/how-to-feel-invisible known goodguy Alex Araki wants to build a blood test for [[chronic pain]]. Is there a good molecular correlate of pain? idk but i hope so. new pain drugs have just the worst track record, and an objective outcome measure might help with that.
https://austinvernon.substack.com/p/speed-can-reindustrialize-america remarkable claim from Austin Vernon that we don't need industrial policy or new automation tech to reindustrialize America -- we just need machine shops that use modern office software for things like quoting, billing, and other "soft" functions (not the machining itself.) He argues that American machine shops could scale to be big -- they're not inherently mom & pop operations -- with the right operational setup (eg modern logistics). includes a list of companies he thinks deserve investment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart why didn't Napoleon just use Gantt charts for logistical planning? because they wouldn't be invented for another hundred years. and they were instrumental in WWI.

sarahconstantin's Shortform

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sarahconstantin's Shortform

8