2026-01-09
ophidian
Seb Krier comments on human substitutability and comparative advantage1. There’s an interesting analogy to outsourcing which is an interesting reminder that even under globalization, the world economy functions somewhat less as a cohesive whole and more like a collection of somewhat loosely connected separate ones. In which case, the rise of an AI economy could be viewed as merely adding another one to the mix. I wonder what this entails as to the future of Effective Altruism, given that it began as a movement intending to efficiently transfer resources from first-world economies to assist people in developing economies. Given their proximity to AI, they are plausibly best suited to enable the transfer of resources from the emerging AI economy to the rest of the world, yet as per Will MacAskill’s recent post on structuring society post-superintelligence, they do not seem to be thinking about it very much. Presumably because this might entail speeding up AI development in some circumstances, for which there is an existing EA cause area currently in direct opposition.
Silas Abrahamsen about views of moral action de dicto and de re, and how people want others to know and do the right thing naturally and instinctively2.
Samuel Arbesman on how financial infrastructure causes regression to the mean in how new research organizations are structured. Though it’s unclear to me to what extent experimental philanthropy through mechanisms such as retroactive impact funding could actually solve this problem, because so long as they only provide a lower liquidity parallel infrastructure, researchers themselves will probably prefer to stick to what’s tried and tested. Ideally, there would be a sort of bridge from the old to new equilibrium, where funding is initially provided in addition, and only splitting off after it grows and gets fully validated.
Saloni Dattani in Works in Progress on the history of modern vaccine development, a clean text version of her recent Hard Drugs episode on the topic.
Rebecca Darley on historical ancient Chinese records describing the Roman Empire, and how commentary on other countries is always done facing inward, with an eye towards comparison. Tangentially related, Marco Giancotti on Darwin’s impressions of South America and the Pacific Islands.
Farrell Gregory in ChinaTalk, on the nuances behind common talking points on rare earth minerals.
Daniel Greco on how truth-seeking is incompatible with disciplinary boundaries. Somewhat representative, Aaron Zinger on the etymological descendants of the Old Norse glámr, and the relation of truth to illusion, abstraction, nuance, and mystery.
Tommy Blanchard on having preferences about one’s preferences.
Phillip Trammel comments, agreeing that premature regulation is not the way.
This is possibly what Ozy Brennan is describing in his description of being guided by Inner Light. From an evolutionary perspective, I expect that this is because doing what is right based on calculation could entail some expectation of compensation, whereas no one would require compensation for something they should do as a matter of course. Alternatively, it could be related to the same phenomena behind why the pickup artistry gives people the ick, presumably because if one does not do what is considered desirable naturally, then there is no guarantee that it will continue, particularly if it stops being instrumentally useful.
Reading Suetonius last year was one of my favorite experiences because it gave the perspective of Roman history... from the eyes of a Roman. The "Mirror, Mirror on the wall..." post had a similarly satisfying feel to it.