This is a linkpost for https://rootsofprogress.org/links-and-tweets-2023-06-28
Opportunities
- AI Grant’s second batch is now accepting applications (via @natfriedman)
- Longevity Biotech Fellowship 2 is also accepting applications (via @allisondman)
- Science writing office hours with Niko McCarty (this one over but more in the future)
News & links
- I-95 reopened in just 12 days after a section of it collapsed. Gov. Shapiro says this proves “that we can do big things again in Pennsylvania”
- Arcadia Science will publish their abandoned projects (via @stuartbuck1)
- Short interview with the Hiroshima bombing mission lead (via @michael_nielsen)
Queries
- When was the last time a positive vision of the future took hold?
- What should Tyler Cowen ask Paul Graham?
- What should Dwarkesh Patel ask Andy Matuschak?
- Who should Eric Gilliam meet in/near London?
- How do airlines pool information / make agreements on safety and avoid antitrust?
- A FAQ that addresses the arguments/concerns of vaccine skeptics?
Quotes
- “I wonder that the Lord God has kept such things hidden”
- “The Flat Iron is to the United States what the Parthenon was to Greece”
- The terrible treatment of the girls who worked in the Bryant and May match factory
AI risk
- Claim: now is an “acute risk period” that only ends with a “global immune system”
- Concerns about AI are warranted, but there are very valid counter-arguments
- An AI doom syllogism
- On the paper “Optimal Policies Tend to Seek Power”
Tweets
- Gear teeth are way more nuanced than you would expect
- A brief thread of wonder at the modern world
- Staying up to date on news by tracking prediction markets
- Floor raisers vs. ceiling raisers
- Induction vs. deduction / empiricism vs. rationalism are the falsest dichotomies
- What someone’s unwillingness to debate says about their position
- “How easy is it for a kid to operate a lemonade stand?” as a city metric. Kennett Square, PA and Tooele, UT score well
- A 13-story, 245-unit timber high rise that would be illegal to build in the US
- Postel’s law for feedback
- Things that “made the modern world,” according to book titles
- “You can count on coal!” (1952)
