Posts by category
education
- A Life Really Worth Living
- Rats and trads
- Piled higher and deeper
- What's stopping you?
- Is education worth it for society?
meaning
- A Life Really Worth Living
- ambitions
- What's stopping you?
- The Boy and the Heron: renunciations
- get hype
- To be led out
- The sense of a start
- prospective nostalgia
- Legacy and the memory of legacy
- 'Terra Ignota': the ecstasy of uncertainty
- Cracking cultures
- Irony, sincerity, nostalgia, neoteny
- hope dies last
- Against the Culture
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- 'Strangers Drowning' (2015) by MacFarquhar
- Is education worth it for society?
- Why is quality rare?
- Anaesthetatron
- 'Infinite Jest' (1996)
becoming
- A Life Really Worth Living
- theisms
- I see the light
- nonmonetary payoffs to starting a company
- Memento
- Piled higher and deeper
- What's stopping you?
- The Boy and the Heron: renunciations
- The brightness that comes before
- 'Disco Elysium' (2019): Part 1
- The ladder of abstraction
- get hype
- To be led out
- prospective nostalgia
- The One True Sceptic
- Things I Use
- 2017 Worldview in Five Books
- Why I'm not a philosopher
- Who would I be in history?
- Effective Altruism Global: x: Oxford
Rorty and the Wild PartyVirtue, work, and the world to come- Limits to self-invention
to desperately instrumentalise myself- On calling people brainwashed
- Economics as philosophy of life
- A Sentimental Journey Through Parts of England
- love, analytically
warnings
my-classes
- A Life Really Worth Living
- Bayesianity
- Origins of human intelligence
- Psychology and fictions of language models
- What's stopping you?
- Google-fu and Scihub-jutsu
- Mathematical dark matter
rationality
- Bayesianity
- Ways we can fail to answer
- Rats and trads
- The brightness that comes before
- Drake, Hanson, and the meaning of life
- Unthinking meat
- Self-help, hard and soft
- Uncritical thinking
- The trouble with supplements
- Insurance isn't necessarily a scam
- Bad introspections
- Broadness and philosophical rank
- 'The Unpersuadables' (2013) by Storr
- You do you
- π vs τ as clash of worldviews
- Existential overheads
Staring at mystics
science
- Bayesianity
- Ways we can fail to answer
- prospective science please
- theisms
- The best of Siderea
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- idiopathies
- The brightness that comes before
- Cracking country
- The best of Scott Aaronson (for laymen)
- Comparing experts and generalists
- Drake, Hanson, and the meaning of life
- Do masks work against COVID, at scale?
- Highlights from my Gists
- 'Peter Watts is an Angry Sentient Tumor' (2019)
- Reversals in psychology
- Uncritical thinking
- On inhabiting a giant corporation
- 'Scarcity' (2013) by Shafir & Mullainathan
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- 'Curiosity' (2012) by Ball
- Einstein
- How lethal are the Tories? Part 1
- 'Hitler's Uranium Club' (2008) by Bernstein
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- The presumed worth of anthropology
- The Worst Game Ever
- Modelling linguistic accommodation
- Present pieties
- Can you trust your methods?
- Civ's implicit social theory
stats
- Bayesianity
- 'Methods Failing the Data, Data Failing the Methods'
- Learn stats without going mad
- Things I Use
- 'Homicide' (1991) by Simon
- Broadness and philosophical rank
- How lethal are the Tories? Part 1
- Estimating political controversy
- The Worst Game Ever
- Modelling linguistic accommodation
greats
- Bayesianity
- Rats and trads
- My favourite essays
- It's full of blogs
- acts of early genius
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- Ramsey
- von Neumann
- Perelman
- Broadness and philosophical rank
- Einstein
- Turing
- 'Hitler's Uranium Club' (2008) by Bernstein
- Frege's grand failure
transhumanism
biology
- Transnormalism
- Origins of human intelligence
- Stimulant tolerance, or, the tears of things
- Rational emotions & emotional machines
- The trouble with supplements
- Why is quality rare?
philosophy
- Transnormalism
- Ways we can fail to answer
- Rats and trads
- theisms
- The ladder of abstraction
- The best of Scott Aaronson (for laymen)
- Ramsey
- Drake, Hanson, and the meaning of life
- Cracking cultures
- The One True Sceptic
- Irony, sincerity, nostalgia, neoteny
- 'Starting Strength' by Rippetoe
- Bad introspections
- Consent as conclusive evidence
- 'Waking Up' (2014) by Harris
- 2017 Worldview in Five Books
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- A common cause in a general end
- Broadness and philosophical rank
- 'The Unpersuadables' (2013) by Storr
- 'Why Moral Theory is Boring and Corrupt'
- 'Curiosity' (2012) by Ball
- Why I'm not a philosopher
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- The presumed worth of anthropology
- Effective Altruism Global: x: Oxford
- magic words
- A decomposition of decompositions
- Why is quality rare?
- Conceptual conversions
- Comparing up and down
- Limits to self-invention
- Taking Hume's name
to desperately instrumentalise myself- Frege's grand failure
- On calling people brainwashed
- Misreading Russell on radical scepticism
- 'The Scotch' (1880) by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Economics as philosophy of life
- The typical language of postmodernism
Staring at mystics- Showing over saying
- Neither Turing, neither Searle
ethics
- Transnormalism
- Rats and trads
- theisms
- Using courts for algorithmic fairness
- The One True Sceptic
- Against the Culture
- AI ethics for present & future
- Consent as conclusive evidence
- Rebellion, and rebellion against rebellion
- Perelman
- 'Why Moral Theory is Boring and Corrupt'
- 'Strangers Drowning' (2015) by MacFarquhar
on veganism- Anaesthetatron
- What's the highest moral wage?
- Misreading Russell on radical scepticism
scifi
ai
- AI in 2025: gestalt
- Paper AI Tigers
- The jailbreak argument against LLM values
- AI breakthroughs 2024-2025
- AI editing: a test
- Abusing "inference"
- Psychology and fictions of language models
- How I don't use LLMs
- Transformer++
- Mitchell's open problems
- 'Methods Failing the Data, Data Failing the Methods'
- Ten Hard Problems in and around AI
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- LLM alignment via activations
- Why worry about future AI?
- Using courts for algorithmic fairness
- AI alignment & academia
- AI ethics for present & future
- Rational emotions & emotional machines
- Notes on inductive logic programming
- Notes on OpenAI Five
- Preventing Side-effects in Gridworlds
- A ceiling for human expertise
- Automatic for the people
- Neither Turing, neither Searle
lists
- AI in 2025: gestalt
- Ways we can fail to answer
- AI breakthroughs 2024-2025
- Tallinn
- On 900 albums of 2024
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- How I don't use LLMs
- Bristol
- The grad school novel
- The best of Siderea
- Every Mountain Goats song ever recorded including those which have a Death Geas placed upon em by the Author
- Spotify is not a social network
- Pop auteurs
- Learn stats without going mad
- The best of Scott Aaronson (for laymen)
- The sense of a start
- Songs for the Extremely Online
- The World Sound
- Blogging is dead, long live sites
- Robots, Games, Life, Markets
- Things I Use
- Reversals in psychology
- 2017 Worldview in Five Books
- Hardening the browser
- Disambiguating the first computer
- Existential overheads
- Conceptual conversions
- Taking Hume's name
- Rubinations
the arts lie dreaming of the life to come
politics
- My politics
- The best of Siderea
- 'Disco Elysium' (2019): Part 1
- Rebellion, and rebellion against rebellion
- π vs τ as clash of worldviews
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- 'The Decline' (1999) by NOFX
- Should we abolish foreign aid?
- On calling people brainwashed
- Punk as ideology
hypothesis-dump
alignment
epistemology
- Ways we can fail to answer
- prospective science please
- Google-fu and Scihub-jutsu
- Comparing experts and generalists
- The One True Sceptic
- 'Peter Watts is an Angry Sentient Tumor' (2019)
- Bad introspections
- Consent as conclusive evidence
- 'The Great Influenza' (2004) by Barry
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- On calling people brainwashed
- Misreading Russell on radical scepticism
- The typical language of postmodernism
maths
- Ways we can fail to answer
- What god has to do in mathematics
- acts of early genius
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- Mathematical dark matter
- The ladder of abstraction
- Favourite maths tools
- Graphs are cool
- Better ways to write maths
- Rebellion, and rebellion against rebellion
- Maths at the Open University
- Perelman
- 'Strangers Drowning' (2015) by MacFarquhar
- π vs τ as clash of worldviews
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- Estimating political controversy
- Effective Altruism Global: x: Oxford
- Conceptual conversions
- What's the highest moral wage?
Rorty and the Wild PartyVirtue, work, and the world to cometo desperately instrumentalise myself- Should we abolish foreign aid?
- Frege's grand failure
- 'Why study economics?'
computers
- Ways we can fail to answer
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- Hardening the browser
- Turing
- Disambiguating the first computer
- troubleshooting a boot drive
- Learn PHP Without Going Mad
- Conceptual conversions
metaphysics
mind
research
conceptual-analysis
encompassing
- Ways we can fail to answer
- What god has to do in mathematics
- Mathematical dark matter
- Robots, Games, Life, Markets
- Conceptual conversions
holes
places
- NY sounds
- Tallinn
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- vignettes from 2024
- Bristol
- [DRAFT] Florence
- 'The Scotch' (1880) by Friedrich Nietzsche
- A Sentimental Journey Through Parts of England
music
- NY sounds
- On 900 albums of 2024
- streaming vs listening
- I see the light
- Every Mountain Goats song ever recorded including those which have a Death Geas placed upon em by the Author
- Spotify is not a social network
- Pop auteurs
- Taylor Swift as blurry jpeg
- Songs for the Extremely Online
- 'Trompettes de la Mort' (2005)
- The World Sound
- 'The Decline' (1999) by NOFX
- Rubinations
the arts lie dreaming of the life to come- 'Have One on Me' by Joanna Newsom
- Punk as ideology
- Interview: Chuck Ragan
machine-learning
- AI breakthroughs 2024-2025
- Piled higher and deeper
- 'Methods Failing the Data, Data Failing the Methods'
- brief history
- Notes on OpenAI Five
- Data Science FAQ
writing
- AI editing: a test
- prospective nostalgia
- Crossing the ocean of my ignorance
- Blogging is dead, long live sites
language
- Abusing "inference"
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- The typical language of postmodernism
- Showing over saying
autobio
- Tallinn
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- vignettes from 2024
- Memento
- Grad school by numbers
- phdiary
- things I didn't do for my thesis
- On forced association
- prospective nostalgia
- On inhabiting a giant corporation
history
- Tallinn
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- idiopathies
- Rebellion, and rebellion against rebellion
- 'Curiosity' (2012) by Ball
- Disambiguating the first computer
- 'Hitler's Uranium Club' (2008) by Bernstein
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- Taking Hume's name
- Civ's implicit social theory
- Should we abolish foreign aid?
criticism
- On 900 albums of 2024
- theisms
- Present pieties
- Rubinations
the arts lie dreaming of the life to come- The typical language of postmodernism
- Punk as ideology
humanism
- Transnormalism
- Origins of human intelligence
- Rats and trads
- The best of Siderea
- Automatic for the people
- A decomposition of decompositions
- Why is quality rare?
uni
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- Bristol
- Piled higher and deeper
- Better ways to write maths
- AI alignment & academia
- Uncritical thinking
- Maths at the Open University
to desperately instrumentalise myself
books
ethics-of-belief
literature
- Rats and trads
- Psychology and fictions of language models
- The grad school novel
- To be led out
- 'Terra Ignota': the ecstasy of uncertainty
- 'The Odyssey' (2017) by Emily Wilson
- 'Ficciones' (1944) by Borges
- 'The Patrick Melrose Novels' by St Aubyn
egregores
social-science
- theisms
- The best of Siderea
- Cracking country
- Comparing experts and generalists
- Uncritical thinking
- On inhabiting a giant corporation
- 'Scarcity' (2013) by Shafir & Mullainathan
- How lethal are the Tories? Part 1
- The presumed worth of anthropology
- The Worst Game Ever
- Modelling linguistic accommodation
- Present pieties
- Civ's implicit social theory
work
art
- streaming vs listening
- Bristol
- Memento
- The Boy and the Heron: renunciations
- Every Mountain Goats song ever recorded including those which have a Death Geas placed upon em by the Author
- [DRAFT] Florence
- 'Disco Elysium' (2019): Part 1
- To be led out
- Cracking country
- Songs for the Extremely Online
- Cracking cultures
- 'Trompettes de la Mort' (2005)
- 'The Decline' (1999) by NOFX
- 'Have One on Me' by Joanna Newsom
economics
- streaming vs listening
- nonmonetary payoffs to starting a company
- Rational emotions & emotional machines
- Robots, Games, Life, Markets
- Insurance isn't necessarily a scam
- On inhabiting a giant corporation
- 'Scarcity' (2013) by Shafir & Mullainathan
- Is education worth it for society?
- Automatic for the people
- What's the highest moral wage?
- Should we abolish foreign aid?
- Economics as philosophy of life
arb
- vignettes from 2024
- Ten Hard Problems in and around AI
- LLM alignment via activations
- Can policymakers trust forecasters?
- Scoring the Big Three
- Comparing experts and generalists
fiction
blogging
phd
- Bristol
- Grad school by numbers
- Piled higher and deeper
- The grad school novel
- phdiary
- 'Methods Failing the Data, Data Failing the Methods'
- things I didn't do for my thesis
- [DRAFT] Against grad school
- Crossing the ocean of my ignorance
self-representation
- nonmonetary payoffs to starting a company
- The brightness that comes before
- On forced association
- Blogging is dead, long live sites
- 2017 Worldview in Five Books
scary-futurism
- Rescuing an old book
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- Why worry about future AI?
- A common cause in a general end
- 'The Great Influenza' (2004) by Barry
- Why care about genetic privacy?
mental-health
game-theory
psychology
- The best of Siderea
- me on ClearerThinking
- On forced association
- Reversals in psychology
- Bad introspections
- 'Scarcity' (2013) by Shafir & Mullainathan
- 'The Patrick Melrose Novels' by St Aubyn
bloggers
quantified-self
- Log of self-experiments
- Stimulant tolerance, or, the tears of things
- The trouble with supplements
- Existential overheads
self-help
- Log of self-experiments
- Great work
- get hype
- prospective nostalgia
- Stimulant tolerance, or, the tears of things
- Crossing the ocean of my ignorance
- Self-help, hard and soft
- Things I Use
- 'Waking Up' (2014) by Harris
- Hardening the browser
- You do you
- Existential overheads
- Comparing up and down
- Limits to self-invention
health
- The best of Siderea
- Log of self-experiments
- idiopathies
- Metabolism is violent
- 'Starting Strength' by Rippetoe
- 'Waking Up' (2014) by Harris
- Comparing up and down
interview
forecasting
- Can policymakers trust forecasters?
- Scoring the Big Three
- Comparing experts and generalists
- Rational emotions & emotional machines
- A ceiling for human expertise
vidya
fun
poem
subculture
longtermism
- The sense of a start
- Ramsey
- Legacy and the memory of legacy
- 'Terra Ignota': the ecstasy of uncertainty
- Drake, Hanson, and the meaning of life
- Against the Culture
- AI ethics for present & future
- Blogging is dead, long live sites
- A common cause in a general end
death
code
tools-for-thought
suffering
rl
rosetta-stone
review
- 'Starting Strength' by Rippetoe
- 'Peter Watts is an Angry Sentient Tumor' (2019)
- 'The Odyssey' (2017) by Emily Wilson
- 'Scarcity' (2013) by Shafir & Mullainathan
- 'Waking Up' (2014) by Harris
- 'Ficciones' (1944) by Borges
- Maths at the Open University
- Perelman
- 'Homicide' (1991) by Simon
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- 'The Patrick Melrose Novels' by St Aubyn
- 'Why Moral Theory is Boring and Corrupt'
- 'Curiosity' (2012) by Ball
- 'The Great Influenza' (2004) by Barry
long-content
the-maths-of-goodness
- Rebellion, and rebellion against rebellion
- 'Strangers Drowning' (2015) by MacFarquhar
- Estimating political controversy
- Effective Altruism Global: x: Oxford
- What's the highest moral wage?
Rorty and the Wild PartyVirtue, work, and the world to cometo desperately instrumentalise myself- Should we abolish foreign aid?
- 'Why study economics?'
argument
- A ceiling for human expertise
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- Neither Turing, neither Searle
scepticism
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- The presumed worth of anthropology
- Can you trust your methods?