Recently, a company called "Loyal" received pre-approval status from the FDA regarding their life extension hormone treatment that has show early promise in extending the lifespan of dogs that weigh > 40lbs. Big dogs have extremely high levels of a particular hormone associated with increased cellular aging and the treatment...
For context, I have happened to find myself in the highly fortunate situation of being relatively young (late-twenties) and having met my financial retirement goals. I have always held a fascination with cognitive science and want to now orient my life to participation within said field in alignment with some...
In my opinion, there are far more effective psychotropic alternatives that have less negatives and even more pronounced anxiolytic and pro-social effects.[1]
My personal experiences with these alternatives have led me to agree that there are very real societal benefits from cultural acceptance and norms regarding substance usage and that humans have had a relationship with psychotropic compounds for a very, very long time. I think that we have not been evaluating societal norms dictating which substances we can engage with. Alcohol, Tobacco (Nicotine), and Caffeine have maintained the largest acceptance area within the "Substance Use Overton Window [SU-OW]"[2] for hundreds if not thousands of years. This dominance within our cultural norms have made... (read more)
One of my favorite time's of the month! Thank you for producing as much great content as you do!
Also I am considering renaming the tiers from 1-5 to S/A/B/C/F as per custom
Can I ask for a short overview of the attributes for each Tier and your overall grading process? If you have discussed it elsewhere, a link would be very appreciated.
Thank you for the great content, as always.
This was incredibly informative. I really appreciate you all taking the time to share. I'm going to be using a lot of the information here immediately! I'd love to read any additional insights on slide design or thoughts you all have on other communication styles as well.
Fair question - I guess that a certain discussion doesn't necessarily have to be "heavy" but I believe that humans are far less skilled at communication, especially in social settings, for the majority of these interactions to not flare up some level of insecurity, human bias, or offend someone's held beliefs.
I personally would say that I'm quite good at navigating a social context while also being able to broach traditionally taboo'd topics, but I do not think this I represent the norm. The general heuristic of avoiding potentially controversial topics has served me well in most social settings like this, where I believe the purpose is for social connection on a lighter,... (read more)
Fair point. I think I agree with this distinction!
It's a creative idea and would be an interesting experiment. That being said, I can't help but wonder why the focus is on sharing such heavy opinions. I'll be honest in that it's not been a major challenge for me in my life to not avoid talking about things that could likely spell discomfort. It's not even been intentional, because to me, it's a party and I want to be talking about things that are fun for myself and for others.
If you are deliberately getting into heavy discussions about a potential socially dangerous topic, I'd ask why you feel the need to talk about it in that setting anyway. Is a party... (read more)
Just returning to this -- Thank you for your comment. I think I need to do a bit more epistemological legwork before I can truly give you a response. Suffice it to say for now that I'm not really torn up about the issue and asked more out of boredom/general curiosity, but I see now that my question was asked lazily.
Perhaps one day soon I'll comment on this with the relevant context/information.
His view on AI alignment risk is infuriating simplistic. To just call certain doomsday scenarios objectively "false" is a level of epistemic arrogance that borders on obscene.
I feel like he could at least acknowledge the existence of possible scenarios and express a need to invest in avoiding those scenarios instead of just negating an entire argument.
Recently, a company called "Loyal" received pre-approval status from the FDA regarding their life extension hormone treatment that has show early promise in extending the lifespan of dogs that weigh > 40lbs. Big dogs have extremely high levels of a particular hormone associated with increased cellular aging and the treatment is designed to combat that and apparently shows promise in doing so. From what I understand about the treatment is that it would be chronically administered and thus would require the owner to consistently pay for the medication to continue the life extension benefits.
Considering the typical costs of new treatments that come to market as well as the general expensive nature of... (read more)
For context, I have happened to find myself in the highly fortunate situation of being relatively young (late-twenties) and having met my financial retirement goals. I have always held a fascination with cognitive science and want to now orient my life to participation within said field in alignment with some of my other interests, particularly the cognitive processes underlying altered states of consciousness (psychedelics, flow, religious ecstasy). After much thought, I've been able to see that a personal skill I've developed is in being able to synthesize existing information and communicate it to others in a way that is easy to understand and I would like to approach my academic pursuit from... (read 165 more words →)
I replied in a different comment with a similar view. I think the issues are more substance-specific with other alternatives being available to consider.
GHB is fantastic in terms of it's very limited negative health effects but it's dosing can cause some issues as you mentioned. Those mentioned risks make it ideal for high-trust, safe situations but less ideal for broad replacement of the usage contexts of alcohol. I think there are other options that can and should be explored though.