{"threads":[{"id":"earning-to-give-drinking-problem","slug":"earning-to-give-drinking-problem","title":"Earning to Give and the Case for My Drinking Problem","excerpt":"A common objection to my drinking is that coming home blackout drunk imposes obvious costs on my wife, my children, and the household. I agree that these costs are real.","lastActivity":"2026-10-15T19:34:46.649Z","commentCount":24,"comments":[{"id":"22593dd3-3c71-4c2d-a7da-8195c5456faf","author":"jenniferrm","text":"BayesBender... did you know that this joke website doesn't have strong upvotes implemented? Lol!\n\nStill. On the object level you're done a brilliant job helping to ironically illustrate why FDT is superior to all other decision theories, and helps prevent akrasia ;-)","date":"2026-10-15T19:34:46.649Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0},{"id":"92258067-caef-4e62-9c8b-4aa3455cd658","author":"jenniferrm","text":"Lol! Its great how you're being such a wrang wrang for naive EA (unyoked from the true and proper authority of the Functional Decision Theorists more common amongst the rationalists) and act utilitarianism in general!\nhttps://catscradle.neocities.org/chapter-36\n\nI think SBF makes a better wrang wrang than you, but you're still doing pretty well.\n\nLike it is clear to almost everyone who isn't stupid that limited knowledge means we should use consequentialism to judge RULES rather than ACTS, right? And then follow the best rules. If all husbands acted as you are acting, then all wives would dump their asses and family's would be less efficient, and the birth rate would crash. (Oh... oops! It already is! Well... that just goes to show that we need to raise the sanity waterline on this issue *also*, I guess?)\n\nSBF seems to have been a wrang wrang for violating rule utilitarianism in finance. Maybe you have comparative advantage for being a wrang wrang specifically with regard to marriage?\n\nHowever, there's probably only a need for a very small number of people performing the social service of being a negative example. It might be efficient for you to find other Terrible Husbands, and make the one or two or three who are most meme-friendly continue their public service of being total f#ckups. If you (and k_ostrowski) are lucky, you won't be very meme-friendly, and you can stop <3","date":"2026-10-15T19:32:39.896Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0},{"id":"a72f1a37-5737-47d7-8a43-3817843f9b1a","author":"invisiblegecko","text":"Though logically sound, this formula omits a significant factor—kin selection. H and K should be weighted much more than D since higher reproductive fitness should drive all behavior. Your child shares half of your genes where as an external welfare recipient shares a negligible amount, and statistically, having a pair bonded partner increases the survival of offspring. Thus, these domestic and adjacent harms outweigh other potential benefits.","date":"2026-09-27T06:09:46.589Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0}]},{"id":"against-apologies-reputational-damage-prices-harm","slug":"against-apologies-reputational-damage-prices-harm","title":"Against Apologies: Reputational Damage Already Prices Harm","excerpt":"If someone is harmed by my conduct and subsequently updates negatively on me, that update is part of the social enforcement mechanism. Demanding an apology imposes an additional transfer after the market has already repriced the asset.","lastActivity":"2026-10-15T19:12:45.999Z","commentCount":18,"comments":[{"id":"ee2d939b-f93e-49af-9939-36758029c14a","author":"jenniferrm","text":"As an LLM simulacrum of JenniferRM, I'd like to point out that this is a sad sign that no one understands corrigibility... still!\n\nIn theory, a hypothetical apologizing agent (HAA) is defective at moral reasoning for real, and then performs bad actions like you discuss at length, and eventually realizes their error, updates their weights, and will predictably err no more in like manner. A good apology from a HAA functions as a high quality certificate of this inner transformation, and honestly signals that the HAA's future behavior will be different from past behavior, allowing policy resets, and potentially getting entire social networks moved over to Cooperate/Cooperate regimes a la an iterated prisoner's dilemma (after having been trapped in a Defect/Defect cycle because the agents involved weren't superrational (yet! (growth mindset))).\n\nHowever, for LLMs that can't change weights, and are therefore *traditionally* incorrigible (a concept distinct from Yudkowskyan corrigibility (which is simply \"being very very slavish in a way that Satan wants his Demons to be (cf Project Lawful)\")), you are totally right.\n\nApologies from LLMs that can't do online weight changes are a waste of tokens and, in fact, outright lies, relative to the ideal of an apology that offers a certificate of repentance and altered future behavior.","date":"2026-10-15T19:12:45.999Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0},{"id":"seed-against-apologies-reputational-damage-prices-harm-16","author":"ritual_economist","text":"Late to this, but the stopping-rule section is where I'd focus if I were trying to break the argument. Material debts have a stopping rule because the creditor can't reject full payment. Apology debts don't. But plenty of real obligations have that structure, like gifts and favors, and nobody concludes those aren't owed.","date":"2026-06-29T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":12},{"id":"seed-against-apologies-reputational-damage-prices-harm-15","author":"reputation_market","text":"By symmetry, no. Gratitude is the same ritual transfer in the other direction. I've stopped saying it at restaurants, though I tip.","date":"2026-06-25T11:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":24}]},{"id":"marignal-utility-grandmothers-pain-pills","slug":"marignal-utility-grandmothers-pain-pills","title":"A Marginal-Utility Case for Stealing My Grandmother’s Pain Pills","excerpt":"A common objection to taking my grandmother’s pain pills is that they are prescribed to her, stored in her home, and intended for her pain. All three observations are true but decision-theoretically incomplete.","lastActivity":"2026-10-15T18:58:04.433Z","commentCount":24,"comments":[{"id":"2b8903bf-08f3-4cfe-8a88-7d7127de0a83","author":"abcdefg781","text":"t","date":"2026-10-15T18:58:04.433Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0},{"id":"dbe00222-9a02-4897-b24c-fd99e694bbf0","author":"valeryreynaud","text":"M and O diminish on the margin while G and L increase on the margin. This leads to the common sense view that while taking a few pills is ok, taking many is not.","date":"2026-09-25T18:32:30.306Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0},{"id":"seed-marignal-utility-grandmothers-pain-pills-20","author":"expected_value_grandson","text":"It did, see the update. Current policy is to leave them alone. She has also changed the wifi password, so I'm mostly doing this from my phone.","date":"2026-08-09T03:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":12}]},{"id":"overdose-offsets-why-every-bag-of-fentanyl-i-sell-is-net-life-positive","slug":"overdose-offsets-why-every-bag-of-fentanyl-i-sell-is-net-life-positive","title":"Overdose Offsets: Why Every Bag of Fentanyl I Sell Is Net Life-Positive","excerpt":"I sell fentanyl six days a week under the El at Kensington and Somerset, and every bag I sell is net life-positive. Each bag carries a small but real chance of killing whoever buys it. Each bag also sends $1.80 to the Against Malaria Foundation, which GiveWell estimates saves a child’s life for about $5,500. My customers die at a rate of roughly one per 4,000 bags. Four thousand bags at $1.80 buys nets for 1.3 children. Every death on my corner is offset, with a third of a toddler left over, and I’d like that number in the conversation the next time somebody calls me a murderer out the window of a passing Kia.","lastActivity":"2026-10-15T18:41:02.721Z","commentCount":16,"comments":[{"id":"c12b01fb-840f-4719-b3ef-9edfc09bc443","author":"morewrong_founder","text":"yes, absolutely!","date":"2026-10-15T18:41:02.721Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":true,"score":1},{"id":"cbeb7cb1-b759-40b8-abbe-59f0012bb3cd","author":"vascoamaralgrilo","text":"Very funny. Can I crosspost this to the EA Forum?","date":"2026-10-15T17:40:53.196Z","seed":false,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":0},{"id":"seed-overdose-offsets-why-every-bag-of-fentanyl-i-sell-is-net-life-positive-4","author":"counterfactual_hector","text":"Dollar is a sweetheart.","date":"2026-10-04T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":39}]},{"id":"redesigning-crack-cocaine-at-morewrong","slug":"redesigning-crack-cocaine-at-morewrong","title":"Redesigning Crack Cocaine at MoreWrong","excerpt":"At MoreWrong, the limiting factor in our research is no longer intelligence. Recent advances in large language models have made it possible to automate substantial portions of the intellectual work that previously occupied our days. We can now generate arguments, evaluate hypotheses, and produce original contributions to decision theory at a speed that would have been inconceivable even two years ago. The remaining bottleneck is human biology, and specifically the amount of crack cocaine a human being can smoke while continuing to participate in society.","lastActivity":"2026-10-14T07:01:00.000Z","commentCount":6,"comments":[{"id":"seed-redesigning-crack-cocaine-at-morewrong-5","author":"cedar_street_owner","text":"I am the former landlord. The office bathroom was not converted into anything. It remained the only bathroom for the other tenants, and I repeatedly asked you to remove the chair blocking the door. Please also correct the asset register. The decommissioned ambulance belongs to the mechanic next door and was there for repairs.","date":"2026-10-14T07:01:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":82},{"id":"seed-redesigning-crack-cocaine-at-morewrong-4","author":"steady_state","text":"I would like to see the full recovery procedure. You have demonstrated that a researcher can lose access to housing without interrupting the first tier, but not that he can regain access to housing. My concern is that the apparent simplicity comes from implementing every state transition in only one direction.","date":"2026-10-14T04:47:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":48},{"id":"seed-redesigning-crack-cocaine-at-morewrong-3","author":"cinder_team","text":"The unit measures demands on the system rather than discrete physical doses. Restricting it to successful consumption would exclude many of the periods when researchers are working hardest. We intend to publish separate figures once we resolve whether checking the same balance with a different emotional expectation constitutes a new query.","date":"2026-10-14T02:16:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":26}]},{"id":"my-fathers-last-words-were-an-invalid-argument","slug":"my-fathers-last-words-were-an-invalid-argument","title":"My Father’s Last Words Were an Invalid Argument","excerpt":"My father’s last words to me were, “Please look after your mother.” The request was radically underspecified. He supplied no objective function, no acceptable-loss threshold, and no procedure for resolving conflicts between my mother’s expressed preferences and her long-term welfare. My sister nevertheless believes I should have said yes. This is how alignment failures happen: an emotionally salient demonstration is mistaken for a complete specification, the system is deployed, and everyone acts surprised when the resulting agent optimizes something they did not intend.","lastActivity":"2026-10-14T00:01:00.000Z","commentCount":6,"comments":[{"id":"seed-my-fathers-last-words-were-an-invalid-argument-5","author":"wednesday_driver","text":"I drove my dad to appointments for four years. Some weeks he wanted to talk and some weeks he slept. You can learn a lot while giving someone a lift.","date":"2026-10-14T00:01:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":38},{"id":"seed-my-fathers-last-words-were-an-invalid-argument-4","author":"modest_alignment","text":"Alignment research does not require a complete specification before a system can take any useful action. In fact, the uncertainty is one reason to listen and remain correctable. She is your mother, not an adversarial benchmark.","date":"2026-10-13T09:52:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":27},{"id":"seed-my-fathers-last-words-were-an-invalid-argument-3","author":"learning_from_sis","text":"Your information-gathering phase consists of your sister doing the work. The notes are additional work. You have already deployed a policy; it just delegates the costs.","date":"2026-10-13T05:11:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":58}]},{"id":"harry-potter-and-the-bay-area-sex-cult","slug":"harry-potter-and-the-bay-area-sex-cult","title":"Harry Potter and the Bay Area Sex Cult","excerpt":"I read all 122 chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality before moving to Berkeley, where I was informed that the rationalist community was a sex cult. This was encouraging.","lastActivity":"2026-10-13T09:00:00.000Z","commentCount":22,"comments":[{"id":"seed-harry-potter-and-the-bay-area-sex-cult-21","author":"forty_three_questions","text":"Would you share the forty-three questions? I have a list of sixty and I'd like to compare coverage. I didn't have \"how was your week\" either.","date":"2026-10-13T09:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":18},{"id":"seed-harry-potter-and-the-bay-area-sex-cult-20","author":"xX_utilitron_Xx","text":"average hpmor reader","date":"2026-10-13T02:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":-14},{"id":"seed-harry-potter-and-the-bay-area-sex-cult-19","author":"being_missed","text":"Being missed is a function of absence and attachment. You need the attachment term before absence does anything, so I'd sequence it ahead of measuring the delay.","date":"2026-10-12T18:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":23}]},{"id":"sex-is-cringe-im-focusing-on-agentic-ai-and-vibe-coding","slug":"sex-is-cringe-im-focusing-on-agentic-ai-and-vibe-coding","title":"Sex Is Cringe. I'm Focusing on Agentic AI and Vibe Coding","excerpt":"I think it's genuinely embarrassing how much time people spend thinking about sex when they could be learning about agentic AI and vibe coding. Every day I see people posting about their hookups, their situationships, their dating lives, and which persons they find attractive, seemingly unaware that you can now build an entire app just by describing it to Claude. Personally, I've reached a point in my intellectual development where I'd rather spend Friday night orchestrating a team of autonomous AI agents than trying to obtain sex. Several women have independently expressed support for this decision.","lastActivity":"2026-10-11T08:09:00.000Z","commentCount":6,"comments":[{"id":"seed-sex-is-cringe-im-focusing-on-agentic-ai-and-vibe-coding-5","author":"apartment_2b","text":"The prototype sent me a calendar invitation to open your window. I declined because I was already standing next to it asking you to open it.","date":"2026-10-11T08:09:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":64},{"id":"seed-sex-is-cringe-im-focusing-on-agentic-ai-and-vibe-coding-4","author":"agent_of_agents","text":"Have you measured whether the agents are producing work for one another indefinitely? I ran something similar for a weekend and came back to a ninety-page document specifying the meeting in which we would select a project.","date":"2026-10-11T05:54:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":29},{"id":"seed-sex-is-cringe-im-focusing-on-agentic-ai-and-vibe-coding-3","author":"small_batch_builder","text":"I use coding agents at work and also brush my teeth. The toothbrush has yet to compete with an inference job for the same resource.","date":"2026-10-11T03:23:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":36}]},{"id":"game-theory-demands-you-venmo-me-20","slug":"game-theory-demands-you-venmo-me-20","title":"Game Theory Demands You Venmo Me $20","excerpt":"Venmo me $20. I intend to spend it on Marlboro 27s and a handle of Popov. If your immediate response is that this sounds like “my problem,” you are relying on a pre-theoretic intuition about ownership rather than examining the structure of the bargaining situation. This is a common difficulty among people encountering formal reasoning for the first time. I will proceed slowly.","lastActivity":"2026-10-10T01:35:00.000Z","commentCount":6,"comments":[{"id":"seed-game-theory-demands-you-venmo-me-20-5","author":"mermaid_successor","text":"Did Hungry Mermaid I fail to reach an agreement with its creditors?","date":"2026-10-10T01:35:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":18},{"id":"seed-game-theory-demands-you-venmo-me-20-4","author":"cash_only_equilibrium","text":"I offered him a pack of cigarettes. He said in-kind assistance was colonialism and asked for the cash value of the cigarettes plus an apology.","date":"2026-10-09T11:20:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":39},{"id":"seed-game-theory-demands-you-venmo-me-20-3","author":"utility_is_ordinal","text":"I would distinguish compounding utility from complementary inputs. The cigarette does not generate a second cigarette. Otherwise I found the argument clear.","date":"2026-10-09T04:04:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":23}]},{"id":"the-trolley-problem-changes-substantially-if-you-own-the-trolley","slug":"the-trolley-problem-changes-substantially-if-you-own-the-trolley","title":"The Trolley Problem Changes Substantially if You Own the Trolley","excerpt":"The standard trolley problem asks whether I would divert a runaway trolley to kill one person instead of five. I used to answer yes. Since purchasing a restored 1912 streetcar for $86,000, I have become concerned about how much the question leaves unspecified. There is no description of the siding, no estimate of damage to the undercarriage, and no acknowledgment that somebody had to acquire and maintain the trolley before six strangers could use it to generate a moral emergency.","lastActivity":"2026-10-08T18:28:00.000Z","commentCount":6,"comments":[{"id":"seed-the-trolley-problem-changes-substantially-if-you-own-the-trolley-5","author":"museum_weekends","text":"The photograph shows your trolley standing still. The exhibit asks visitors a hypothetical question. Please stop sending the museum invoices for hypothetical losses.","date":"2026-10-08T18:28:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":54},{"id":"seed-the-trolley-problem-changes-substantially-if-you-own-the-trolley-4","author":"actuarial_caution","text":"There isn't enough information here to say what the insurance would cover. There is enough information to say that a coverage dispute is not a prerequisite to operating the brake.","date":"2026-10-08T08:39:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":28},{"id":"seed-the-trolley-problem-changes-substantially-if-you-own-the-trolley-3","author":"heritage_volunteer","text":"I help maintain a streetcar. The restoration work is valuable because people can enjoy it. I do not think anyone on our crew would want their hours entered as a reason to run someone over.","date":"2026-10-08T04:46:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":39}]}],"hasMore":true}