so much content

The choice of, or instinctive reaching for, the word content speaks volumes.

where anything you want to see or read can be spun up in an instant, without labor.

"Without labor," sure.

Yudkowsky had a gift for making hyperniche concepts accessible.

No, he didn't. His "explanations" are turgid and useless even when they're not just mathematically wrong. They create the feeling of understanding for some readers — those who want their self-image of smartness validated, who imagine that LessWrong is the cool kids' table, and who aren't actually tested on how much they've learned.

Over the course of thousands of pages, rationalist Harry uses logic and decision theory to save the world and defeat Voldemort.

No, he uses his fucking Time Turner.

Snyder seemed to be trying to break through to Yudkowsky with an appeal to his self-importance

OK, zero notes there.

If someone asked me to write a metafictional short story, I would simply not.

I consider this a valuable lesson from my college education.

Kelsey Piper continues to bluecheck:

Scott Alexander was accused of being secretly a right-wing racist and hiding it to avoid getting cancelled, and I think a bunch of his followers believed it, and now they're shocked and hurt that he's actually the sincere center left guy he said he was the whole time.

(Via.)

(For convenience: The leaked e-mails in which he admits to being secretly racist and hiding it to avoid getting cancelled. And his endorsement of super-racist Richard Lynn from last month.)

The lead-in to that is even "better":

This seems particularly important to consider given the upcoming conservative administration, as I think we are in a much better position to help with this conservative administration than the vast majority of groups associated with AI alignment stuff. We've never associated ourselves very much with either party, have consistently been against various woke-ish forms of mob justice for many years, and have clearly been read a non-trivial amount by Elon Musk (and probably also some by JD Vance).

"The reason for optimism is that we can cozy up to fascists!"

From the linked Andrew Molitor item:

Why Extropic insists on talking about thermodynamics at all is a mystery, especially since “thermodynamic computing” is an established term that means something quite different from what Extropic is trying to do. This is one of several red flags.

I have a feeling this is related to wanking about physics in the e/acc holy gospels. They invoke thermodynamics the way that people trying to sell you healing crystals for your chakras invoke quantum mechanics.

Altman's line is what you write when you have nothing novel to say about physics but really, really want to say disparaging things about gay people.

From an article about a boutique brand that sells books to rich people:

Assouline has made its name publishing tomes that sell for $1,000 or more.

Oh, so they publish textbooks.

"They represent stealth wealth, intended to tell you what your hosts are about and to provide visual evidence: that the owners are people of wealth, education and taste."

🎶 Please allow me to introduce myself 🎶

Fetish content for the world's most divorced man.

Why did 3.6 million people watch this hour long video dunking on flat earthers? Because the topic of people believing crazy things is fun and interesting.

Dan Olson's In Search of a Flat Earth is most definitely not just an hour of dunking on flat-Earthers.

It pivots to discussing QAnon at 37:30.

From the comments:

This just went from 0 to 100 real quick.

Lord, the cry of pure anguish I gave out in response to that line...

Props to the Qanon guy's kid for standing up to him and saying "nobody's gonna help you" when he kidnapped them, that must have been terrifying

Occasionally rewatch this while dealing with the loss of my own parents to conspiracy lunacy. Even tried using this video to pull them back from the edge. Ended up precipitating cutting contact with them, something that has done wonders for my mental health. I have since realised they were deeper in than I thought, and were never going to listen to their child, and unlikely to listen to people they actually might have respected the opinions of.

The person I used to consider my father now believes that viruses aren't real and is getting deep into transphobia and Putin worship. He is likely to already be a holocaust denier. There is no bottom to the conspiracy theory abyss and few ever seem to find their way back from the depths.

Thank you for crushing that last bit of remaining hope I didn't even know I had.

It's honestly kind of chilling to see him effectively spending half an hour predicting the Jan 6th riot.

"Fun and interesting"?

So, if anyone is keeping score, the promise of Artificial Intelligence has descended from "the computers on Star Trek" to "spicy ticket-booking".

Gee, one might almost think that EA was hostile to women.