Italian guy here. Quick reasonable cause for direct correlation between ride distance and mask check: it also correlates with the check of the tickets. For long distance trains you’ll always have you ticket checked a few minutes after boarding. For short distance trains, it will get checked maybe ~50% of the times. For local transportation, maybe ~5% of the times.
Yep. Did not take into account - let this be a note that I would adjust down ~10% for it, but what's done is done.
I do like the holiday on principle, although I'd have called it something more descriptive and also I think we have too many holidays. I'd suggest Presidents Day as the obvious first cut.
A note on Canada dropping the vaxx requirements: Although you are allowed to cross the border if un-vaxxed, you still need to quarantine for 2 weeks in a hotel upon entry to CAN. So unless you can afford a two week vacation entirely out of pocket you are still pretty much banned. Further, the requirement is only suspended, so it might pop back up. John Carter wrote on the matter here: https://barsoom.substack.com/p/still-not-true-or-strong-or-free?s=r
I wouldn't discount the 'public disaster' idea so quickly, nuclear energy was pretty effectively stifled following a few high-profile incidents. If you can't get GPUs burned, maybe you can subject people with lots of GPUs to so much "safety review" they give up on doing things. Not that China would care.
Ideally, 'we' would pursue AI safety/alignment _securely_, e.g. mostly secretly. There could still be public oversight. The monopoly of the project, e.g. on pursuing AGI, would be effectively enforced. We'd take as long as we needed.
Practically ... it just doesn't seem plausible, or even _really_ possible? Given anyone's priors on human behavior, is it in fact possible that a real 'toothy' ban on AGI development (or maybe even just AI altogether) _could_ be imposed? Let's hope so! (I will also happily accept 'we can't make AGI' or 'we can't make too-dangerous AI', for any reason or any duration.)
I think the big difference between AI safety/alignment and, e.g. pandemic preparation, is that _actually_ effective pandemic preparation is _safe_ to develop in the open. The epistemics of almost everyone are terrible, but that too could be improved in public, and safely. It would probably be easier to do both of these in public. 'Pandemic response capability' doesn't (or shouldn't) cause pandemics. And if it did, in some particular case, do it secretly and securely – but include all of the costs of that in the cost-benefit analysis; and the costs of _failing_ to maintain secrecy or security.
Developing a nuclear bomb isn't a project that's safe to do publicly. There's some actual enforcement for that too.
Maybe 'developing a nuclear bomb' level secrecy/security would be the best possibility for the world? Nations/coalitions would be competing with each other, but they might mostly be able to squash potential competitors in their own territories.
As far as I can tell, there are good reasons to believe it’s an expected value positive treatment based on deaths, at least for people who aren’t young, but might not meet the high risk threshold.
Does this support the contention that vaccination may leave vaccinated people even more vulnerable to infection and reinfection over time?? And what does it mean that that overall immunity may benefit from parts of the coronavirus that are “exposed only during infection.” ?
One (minor) annoyance of my own: the fucking 'mask required' signs will probably NEVER come down.
And, maybe that's fair enough. I _think_, were I to have such a sign, I'd have torn it down once masks weren't required. Maybe most people, e.g. small business owners, just don't want to have to think about it all, e.g. in case they end up having to put the sign back up again later?
Maybe we won't 'really' be 'really done' until small business start taking down those signs.
Maybe the important signal was 'putting UP the sign'. There's no benefit (apparently) to taking it down, i.e. maintaining the accuracy of 'signs on the window' or 'masks required' signs specifically (and everywhere all at once).
And, even more sadly, maybe 'taking the sign DOWN' is interpreted as, (or more likely) people _think_ other people will be interpreted as, 'I don't care about the pandemic', which is just an overwhelming cost, damn the accuracy of signs.
I'd be up for trading 'less signs' for 'more accurate signs'!
Is there a 'template' for 'doing the thing' instead of 'talking about the thing'?
One aspect of 'doing the thing' that seems ... tricky to discuss is 'how do we do the thing if we're not allowed to do the thing'? Like ... can we just 'do it anyways'?
Re: I declare defense production act! Hilariously (but in a fake laugh, real pain way) this is how I described its' recent use to a friend... When a presidential determination was made to use the DPA for (*checks notes*) building insulation?!?!
Apparently, it is fairly easy to defeat an official COVID test. So, if the testing regime returns I wouldn't worry too much about having to incur additional costs due to a positive test.
Italian guy here. Quick reasonable cause for direct correlation between ride distance and mask check: it also correlates with the check of the tickets. For long distance trains you’ll always have you ticket checked a few minutes after boarding. For short distance trains, it will get checked maybe ~50% of the times. For local transportation, maybe ~5% of the times.
My primary doctor “wasn’t prescribing paxlovid” for some “reason”. So I called the nyc h&h COVID hotline and got it delivered to me later that night.
Holiday alert - next Monday is Juneteenth, which might cause reporting issues
Yep. Did not take into account - let this be a note that I would adjust down ~10% for it, but what's done is done.
I do like the holiday on principle, although I'd have called it something more descriptive and also I think we have too many holidays. I'd suggest Presidents Day as the obvious first cut.
Do you have a checklist for these posts? And a calendar automatically populated with holidays?
A note on Canada dropping the vaxx requirements: Although you are allowed to cross the border if un-vaxxed, you still need to quarantine for 2 weeks in a hotel upon entry to CAN. So unless you can afford a two week vacation entirely out of pocket you are still pretty much banned. Further, the requirement is only suspended, so it might pop back up. John Carter wrote on the matter here: https://barsoom.substack.com/p/still-not-true-or-strong-or-free?s=r
I wouldn't discount the 'public disaster' idea so quickly, nuclear energy was pretty effectively stifled following a few high-profile incidents. If you can't get GPUs burned, maybe you can subject people with lots of GPUs to so much "safety review" they give up on doing things. Not that China would care.
(Also, the covid comparison seems nonsense?)
Nuclear energy being stifled was bad tho?
Ideally, 'we' would pursue AI safety/alignment _securely_, e.g. mostly secretly. There could still be public oversight. The monopoly of the project, e.g. on pursuing AGI, would be effectively enforced. We'd take as long as we needed.
Practically ... it just doesn't seem plausible, or even _really_ possible? Given anyone's priors on human behavior, is it in fact possible that a real 'toothy' ban on AGI development (or maybe even just AI altogether) _could_ be imposed? Let's hope so! (I will also happily accept 'we can't make AGI' or 'we can't make too-dangerous AI', for any reason or any duration.)
I think the big difference between AI safety/alignment and, e.g. pandemic preparation, is that _actually_ effective pandemic preparation is _safe_ to develop in the open. The epistemics of almost everyone are terrible, but that too could be improved in public, and safely. It would probably be easier to do both of these in public. 'Pandemic response capability' doesn't (or shouldn't) cause pandemics. And if it did, in some particular case, do it secretly and securely – but include all of the costs of that in the cost-benefit analysis; and the costs of _failing_ to maintain secrecy or security.
Developing a nuclear bomb isn't a project that's safe to do publicly. There's some actual enforcement for that too.
Maybe 'developing a nuclear bomb' level secrecy/security would be the best possibility for the world? Nations/coalitions would be competing with each other, but they might mostly be able to squash potential competitors in their own territories.
I ran some quick numbers from paxolivids recent press release https://twitter.com/cauchyfriend/status/1536939327581655040?s=21&t=aIit5_35rc4kqDIQ4BLh6g
As far as I can tell, there are good reasons to believe it’s an expected value positive treatment based on deaths, at least for people who aren’t young, but might not meet the high risk threshold.
So glad about the testing requirement, about time!
Zvi, can you look at this paper in Nature? https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1841
Does this support the contention that vaccination may leave vaccinated people even more vulnerable to infection and reinfection over time?? And what does it mean that that overall immunity may benefit from parts of the coronavirus that are “exposed only during infection.” ?
> Requiring a huge amount of work to be done that doesn’t need to be done, and then doing it, is a cost.
I have been trying to convince colleagues of this for years with little success.
One (minor) annoyance of my own: the fucking 'mask required' signs will probably NEVER come down.
And, maybe that's fair enough. I _think_, were I to have such a sign, I'd have torn it down once masks weren't required. Maybe most people, e.g. small business owners, just don't want to have to think about it all, e.g. in case they end up having to put the sign back up again later?
Maybe we won't 'really' be 'really done' until small business start taking down those signs.
Maybe the important signal was 'putting UP the sign'. There's no benefit (apparently) to taking it down, i.e. maintaining the accuracy of 'signs on the window' or 'masks required' signs specifically (and everywhere all at once).
And, even more sadly, maybe 'taking the sign DOWN' is interpreted as, (or more likely) people _think_ other people will be interpreted as, 'I don't care about the pandemic', which is just an overwhelming cost, damn the accuracy of signs.
I'd be up for trading 'less signs' for 'more accurate signs'!
Totally expecting the dril tweet in here
Is there a 'template' for 'doing the thing' instead of 'talking about the thing'?
One aspect of 'doing the thing' that seems ... tricky to discuss is 'how do we do the thing if we're not allowed to do the thing'? Like ... can we just 'do it anyways'?
Aaargh – seems like an infohazard; we're fucked.
>Could it, perhaps, send a strong price signal not to expand production capacity
We need a cabinet-level position to watch out for and mitigate perverse incentives, for any and all government intervention.
Re: I declare defense production act! Hilariously (but in a fake laugh, real pain way) this is how I described its' recent use to a friend... When a presidential determination was made to use the DPA for (*checks notes*) building insulation?!?!
https://www.energy.gov/articles/president-biden-invokes-defense-production-act-accelerate-domestic-manufacturing-clean
Apparently, it is fairly easy to defeat an official COVID test. So, if the testing regime returns I wouldn't worry too much about having to incur additional costs due to a positive test.