Posts by category
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
- ambitions
- 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
- 2017 Worldview in Five Books
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- A common cause in a general end
- 'The Unpersuadables' (2013) by Storr
- '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
- 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
Staring at mystics- 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
- Perelman
- '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 editing: a test
- Abusing "inference"
- Psychology and fictions of language models
- How I don't use LLMs
- Transformer++
- Mitchell's open problems
- 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
- 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
- Tallinn
- On 900 albums of 2024
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- How I don't use LLMs
- Bristol
- 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
- π vs τ as clash of worldviews
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- 'The Decline' (1999) by NOFX
- On calling people brainwashed
- Punk as ideology
hypothesis-dump
alignment
science
- 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
- 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
- Reversals in psychology
- Uncritical thinking
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- 'Curiosity' (2012) by Ball
- Einstein
- How lethal are the Tories? Part 1
- Data Science FAQ
- The presumed worth of anthropology
- The Worst Game Ever
- Modelling linguistic accommodation
- Present pieties
- Can you trust your methods?
- Civ's implicit social theory
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)
- 'The Great Influenza' (2004) by Barry
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- On calling people brainwashed
- Misreading Russell on radical scepticism
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
- Maths at the Open University
- Perelman
- π vs τ as clash of worldviews
- Is Yitang Zhang an intellectual?
- Conceptual conversions
- Frege's grand failure
computers
- Ways we can fail to answer
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- Hardening the browser
- Turing
- Disambiguating the first computer
- Learn PHP Without Going Mad
- Conceptual conversions
rationality
- 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
- 'The Unpersuadables' (2013) by Storr
- You do you
- Existential overheads
Staring at mystics
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
- Bristol
- [DRAFT] Florence
- 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
writing
- AI editing: a test
- prospective nostalgia
- Crossing the ocean of my ignorance
- Blogging is dead, long live sites
language
autobio
history
- Tallinn
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- idiopathies
- '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
criticism
- On 900 albums of 2024
- theisms
- Present pieties
- Rubinations
the arts lie dreaming of the life to come- Punk as ideology
my-classes
- Origins of human intelligence
- Psychology and fictions of language models
- What's stopping you?
- Google-fu and Scihub-jutsu
- Mathematical dark matter
humanism
- Transnormalism
- Origins of human intelligence
- Rats and trads
- The best of Siderea
- Automatic for the people
- Why is quality rare?
evolutionary
uni
education
book
ethics-of-belief
greats
- Rats and trads
- My favourite essays
- It's full of blogs
- acts of early genius
- 'The Maniac' (2023) by Labatut
- Ramsey
- von Neumann
- Perelman
- Einstein
- Turing
- Frege's grand failure
literature
- Rats and trads
- Psychology and fictions of language models
- To be led out
- 'Terra Ignota': the ecstasy of uncertainty
- 'The Odyssey' (2017) by Emily Wilson
religion
becoming
- 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
egregores
social-science
- theisms
- The best of Siderea
- Comparing experts and generalists
- Uncritical thinking
- 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
philosophy-of-life
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)
- 'Homicide' (1991) by Simon
- 'The Decline' (1999) by NOFX
- 'Have One on Me' by Joanna Newsom
capitalism
economics
- streaming vs listening
- nonmonetary payoffs to starting a company
- Rational emotions & emotional machines
- Robots, Games, Life, Markets
- Is education worth it for society?
- Automatic for the people
- What's the highest moral wage?
- Economics as philosophy of life
fiction
blogging
phd
- Bristol
- Grad school by numbers
- Piled higher and deeper
- phdiary
- things I didn't do for my thesis
- [DRAFT] Against grad school
- Crossing the ocean of my ignorance
money
freedom
self-representation
- nonmonetary payoffs to starting a company
- The brightness that comes before
- Blogging is dead, long live sites
- 2017 Worldview in Five Books
xrisk
- 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
navel-gazing
academia
- Piled higher and deeper
- Better ways to write maths
- AI alignment & academia
to desperately instrumentalise myself
machine-learning
meaning
- 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)
warnings
mental-health
game-theory
psychology
bloggers
arb
- Ten Hard Problems in and around AI
- LLM alignment via activations
- Can policymakers trust forecasters?
- Scoring the Big Three
- Comparing experts and generalists
health
- The best of Siderea
- idiopathies
- Metabolism is violent
- 'Starting Strength' by Rippetoe
- Comparing up and down
self-help
- 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
- Hardening the browser
- You do you
- Existential overheads
- Comparing up and down
- Limits to self-invention
stats
- Learn stats without going mad
- How lethal are the Tories? Part 1
- The Worst Game Ever
- Modelling linguistic accommodation
interview
forecasting
- Can policymakers trust forecasters?
- Scoring the Big Three
- Comparing experts and generalists
- A ceiling for human expertise
vidya
fun
poem
status
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
personal
obit
death
code
tools-for-thought
quantified-self
suffering
predictions
RL
rosetta-stone
quantification
review
- 'Starting Strength' by Rippetoe
- 'Peter Watts is an Angry Sentient Tumor' (2019)
- 'The Odyssey' (2017) by Emily Wilson
- Maths at the Open University
- Perelman
- 'Homicide' (1991) by Simon
- 'Blindsight' (2006) by Watts
- 'Curiosity' (2012) by Ball
- 'The Great Influenza' (2004) by Barry
replication
long-content
utility
finance
bio
- Transnormalism
- Tallinn
- Origins of human intelligence
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- Stimulant tolerance, or, the tears of things
- Rational emotions & emotional machines
- The trouble with supplements
- Perelman
- Einstein
- 'The Great Influenza' (2004) by Barry
- Turing
- 'Hitler's Uranium Club' (2008) by Bernstein
- Why is quality rare?
goodhart
progress
effective-altruism
- 'Strangers Drowning' (2015) by MacFarquhar
- 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
biorisk
argument
- A ceiling for human expertise
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- Neither Turing, neither Searle
physics
scary-futurism
naturalism
scepticism
- Does the gut cross the epistemic barrier?
- The presumed worth of anthropology
- Can you trust your methods?
reason
data-science
the-two-cultures
cause-prioritisation
comput
- 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