Regarding #6, can you provide a link to the research suggesting a 2-sigma improvement in class performance with tutoring?
#10 is wrong. While chevrons indeed belong at the top, smart double quotes are second-best.
#16: A mind link would exacerbate, not resolve, marital problems. More marital problems are resolved by keeping thoughts to oneself than by blurting them out.
#19: Sculpture can be based on touch, and more sculptures should be made and displayed in a way that encourages touching.
> Tutoring in general, most likely, does not reach the 2-sigma level that Bloom suggested. Likewise, it's unlikely that mastery learning provides a 1-sigma improvement.
> But high quality tutors, and high quality software are likely able to reach a 2-sigma improvement and beyond.
(I originally had more caveats about all this but in the interest of brevity replaced them all with the single weasel word "might".)
I'm probably incredibly naive, but isn't it possible you might empathize with their experience of finding you annoying once you had experienced it yourself? And therefore change your behavior?
Maybe it would be bimodal? Relatively close couples would get closer because they would tend to empathize. Couples that aren't a match would be more likely to split up.
Not naive — empathy and trying to see the other’s point of view: important in all relationships! But the unfiltered truth could be damaging. What if the annoying things are too innate to be changed? Or he is just irritated in the moment and it’s not the statement of an eternal truth? Maybe the live feed between brains could come with a rose-colored-glasses filter that is truthful but not too harsh.
But I will save the rest of my thoughts to that Christmas dinner discussion—I’m pretty sure I could switch sides halfway through the debate.
Regarding #25, assuming we can eventually work out a synthmeat process that doesn't require any additional inputs to keep on going, so is completely fine morally, will we eventually start eating fake human meat; and, even better/worse, fake *celebrity* human meat, like a George Clooney burger or a Taylor Swift burger?
I'm excited to see a lot more evidence on tutoring as this new era of AI tutors kicks off. Even if it doesn't come that close to the two sigma level, I think universal, personalized access to tutoring seems like one of the clearest, biggest wins we should expect from AI.
While I’m already using ChatGPT as a frequent study aid, I don’t think the current generation of AI is sufficient for /the/ tutoring breakthrough. What makes a great tutor great* is at least partially their own deep understanding. That lets them answer the questions that are asked, but also that should be asked, and allows them to see where to push their pupils to next.
Deep understanding is exactly what current AI is weakest at. My bet is that GPT-4-or-equivalent gets 0.1-0.5 sigma improvement. Still a big deal! But my hopes are not that high.
Great list. These are always so thought-provoking, and the opposite of existential angst!
Re: #1 - I tried and made the world worse overall https://www.losingmyreligions.net/ But have the best marriage ever. So a net win for me, net loss for history.
Fantastic list; loved it! If this list is going to become a tradition, it might actually become my favourite part of Christmas.
Some answers:
4. Higher education is about signalling, gatekeeping, and (to a lesser extent) networking, not about education.
5. No, because back then we didn't /know/ that higher education wasn't about education.
8. It could be as good as a human; whatever it lost on the interaction it could make up for in patience, availability, versatility, etc. Also for sufficiently generous definitions of "sufficiently capable" it could in the extreme case just make itself physically indistinguishable from a human.
9. On the spectrum with《delicious⟫ at one end and ‷gross‴ at the other, a hair - with or without a person attached to it - is somewhere in the middle, in a region marked "not gross but I still don't want to eat it"
10. You missed out the most crucial set of quotation marks! The sentence should read:
Here is the "correct" ranking of quotation marks in different languages [...]
13. LSD fruit pastilles
14. Two dogs: 0.00001cp. Two people: 0.0001cp. Our brain hemispheres have *very* good communication; talking and canine body language are both incredibly low-bandwidth.
15. Probably around ‒0.000025 to ‒0.00005
16. All of them; marriage has been outlawed by the hegemonic hive mind that now rules what used to be humanity.
19. Massage (I'm thinking more eg. head massage than sports massage &c.); hot stone treatments; various forms of back manipulation, reflexology, etc. (they're sure as hell not science but they can certainly be art); various tantric practices; regluar ol' sex. If food counts for smell and roller-coasters count for.. well.. anything.. then I'm pretty confident these things should count too....
20. No, but people who've never worn clothes would probably want not to start even more strongly than they currently want not to.
22. Suits are gone?!
24. On a personal everyday level, "be a pain in the arse about it" is rarely the optimal strategy for persuading anybody of anything. Do please still feel free to be a pain in the arse nevertheless, though, if other people are giving you needless grief about your minority ethical views.
26. For the proletariat, sure. Everybody with money to burn, however, will gladly pay more to avoid having that much science in their food. The supermarket will have two brands of meat that are literally indistinguishable right down to the molecular level, but one will cost twice as much so that respectable sophisticated people can pay to make sure they're eating an animal that suffered and didn't want to die.
27. If they're here already, walking amongst us, how would we know?
28. Ooh, that's a clever formulation of the 'psychopath test'!
29. Films and books tell us the same sorts of cosy falsehoods and comforting half-truths that we would quite happily tell ourselves without any outside intervention. (ie. they /do/ mislead us about life ‒ but removing them wouldn't suddenly make us intellectually honest or rigorous.)
- #8 I often wonder about this. The future of the education system might hinge upon that very question. I would say no, after a certain age and for a certain threshold of conscientiousness. Before and below which, yes.
- #10. People simply don't realize that all Indian languages (as far as I am aware), use double quotes just like English. There is no character native to Indian languages that is the equivalent of quotes. In Tamil, there wasn't anything to denote quotes before it was adopted by copying English.
- #16. It is a terrible idea. Most marriages like most relationships require some level of secrecy.
- #17. Reminds me of that David Brooks essay titled The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake?
- #27. It is not possible in India. It has been legislated out of possibility. I learned during my first visit to India in 7 years, that everything and I mean every single thing requires an OTP (one-time password) text message. Maybe there is a return to dumb phones but not no phones.
Re: #19, if food counts for smell then fashion is a tactile art form. Consumer studies show that the very first thing people do in stores is feel fabric, stores are now arranged to facilitate/encourage this. Even when fashion is not accessible on a tactile level (museum, runways) its still very important for the designer to use fabrics/construction styles where just looking at them evokes a tactile memory. As far as their practical funciton goes, people obviously care about how their clothes feel to them, with many people prioritizing this over their visual appeal. Many people (including myself) also consider how their clothes would feel to other people as well.
Per #16, It's not naive to think some marriages would be helped with extra (mind-link) communication, but many would end immediately as the relevant spouse learned that certain opinions or ways of thinking were permanent/worse than they thought. The extreme example would be the number of spouses who would find out their partner thinks of them as essentially sub-human (which I think would be a stastically significant amount). Once you realize your partner doesn't respect you/is fundementally not attracted to you/thinks you're unintelligent in a fixed, static way it's very hard to come back. Not to be cheesy but spouses who saw through the mind link that the other person loved them could survive that experience, most others could not.
The most important part of a food's taste is its flavor, which can be done exclusively through seasoning for convenience. Most of the difficulty in cooking comes from trying to improve texture, specifically getting multiple contrasting textures. Here is a rough recipe that is cheap, healthy, flavorful, and convenient to prepare:
1. Cook a pot of lentils however you like. High water = soup, medium water = chili, low water = beans. I usually do low-medium, but anything goes. Other beans are fine too, but lentils have high protein and are very small so they cook quickly. I use a pressure cooker for maximum convenience.
2. Season with salt, MSG, and a neutral oil like palm or canola. Add them a little at a time, mix it around, taste it, and stop when its good. Everyone has different taste here and its easy to overdo it.
3. Pick one or two random spices from your cupboard and try them out. I usually go with either onion powder + anything spicy or lemon juice, but it's difficult to go wrong here. Once you know how you like it seasoned, you can measure the proportions and make your own container of seasoning salt/oil to make this faster in the future.
Nutritionally you should basically be set for macronutrients from this, you can get away with eating this every day as long as you take vitamin supplements for micronutrients. Lentils give fiber, carbs, and protein, canola gives omega-3 fats. IANAD but so far despite eating this for 90% of my meals over several years I have yet to have any doctors tell me I'm deficient in anything whenever I get my bloodwork done.
If you really want want some texture variety all you have to do is add any random savory-compatible vegetable to the pot when you cook, I do onions or spinach until I run out (I don't grocery shop frequently enough to bother with this consistently).
If beans make you gassy you can alleviate this by soaking or sprouting them.
6: Tutors continue to carry social stigma (e.g. "Timmy couldn't figure it out himself, we had to get him a tutor").
19: Art that is meant to be physically touched is very hard to maintain. Ten thousand people can look at a painting without altering the painting, but if ten people rub their bodies against the painting, the painting changes (surface properties change due to oil/sweat, no longer hygienic to touch, etc).
22: The shift is permanent. It is not about casual vs formal, but about the material. Before the 20th century, cloth couldn't stretch. To fit over the head and shoulders, garments had to either "opened" and then later fastened with buttons/belts/etc. We are moving to a world where most garments can stretch, which obviates the need for things like buttons.
27: Already happening in many youth subcultures. I think most still carry phones. Strictly avoiding screen time and only making exceptions for non-algorithmic screen time (e.g. "we're going to watch this exact movie, then turn off the TV").
Great list.
My favorite is #3.
Regarding #6, can you provide a link to the research suggesting a 2-sigma improvement in class performance with tutoring?
#10 is wrong. While chevrons indeed belong at the top, smart double quotes are second-best.
#16: A mind link would exacerbate, not resolve, marital problems. More marital problems are resolved by keeping thoughts to oneself than by blurting them out.
#19: Sculpture can be based on touch, and more sculptures should be made and displayed in a way that encourages touching.
Thank you, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Cheers. For the two-sigma improvement in class performance, the classic reference would be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem
But I have much more faith in this more skeptical modern take: https://nintil.com/bloom-sigma/
> Tutoring in general, most likely, does not reach the 2-sigma level that Bloom suggested. Likewise, it's unlikely that mastery learning provides a 1-sigma improvement.
> But high quality tutors, and high quality software are likely able to reach a 2-sigma improvement and beyond.
(I originally had more caveats about all this but in the interest of brevity replaced them all with the single weasel word "might".)
You are right about the #10 marital mind link.
Not to mention the horror of seeing firsthand how annoying and unappealing your spouse finds you at times.
I'm probably incredibly naive, but isn't it possible you might empathize with their experience of finding you annoying once you had experienced it yourself? And therefore change your behavior?
Maybe it would be bimodal? Relatively close couples would get closer because they would tend to empathize. Couples that aren't a match would be more likely to split up.
Not naive — empathy and trying to see the other’s point of view: important in all relationships! But the unfiltered truth could be damaging. What if the annoying things are too innate to be changed? Or he is just irritated in the moment and it’s not the statement of an eternal truth? Maybe the live feed between brains could come with a rose-colored-glasses filter that is truthful but not too harsh.
But I will save the rest of my thoughts to that Christmas dinner discussion—I’m pretty sure I could switch sides halfway through the debate.
Great idea for when the Xmas dinner is going awry
As to the music optimized for animals, someone did that for cats:
https://www.musicforcats.com/
I need to see some video of cats listening to this! (There are lots of videos of cockatoos listening to human music and seemingly loving it.)
Regarding #25, assuming we can eventually work out a synthmeat process that doesn't require any additional inputs to keep on going, so is completely fine morally, will we eventually start eating fake human meat; and, even better/worse, fake *celebrity* human meat, like a George Clooney burger or a Taylor Swift burger?
Definitely agree that the inevitability of people consuming synth George Clooney meat is an excellent topic to bring up with family over the holidays.
I'm excited to see a lot more evidence on tutoring as this new era of AI tutors kicks off. Even if it doesn't come that close to the two sigma level, I think universal, personalized access to tutoring seems like one of the clearest, biggest wins we should expect from AI.
While I’m already using ChatGPT as a frequent study aid, I don’t think the current generation of AI is sufficient for /the/ tutoring breakthrough. What makes a great tutor great* is at least partially their own deep understanding. That lets them answer the questions that are asked, but also that should be asked, and allows them to see where to push their pupils to next.
Deep understanding is exactly what current AI is weakest at. My bet is that GPT-4-or-equivalent gets 0.1-0.5 sigma improvement. Still a big deal! But my hopes are not that high.
* Like, the difference between the kind of tutoring Eric Hoel wrote about in his series of blog posts on cultivating genius https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einsteins, and a disinterested undergrad picking up hours at the writing center for beer money
I reread your comment after writing my reply and realized I actually just agree with you, lmao
Great list. These are always so thought-provoking, and the opposite of existential angst!
Re: #1 - I tried and made the world worse overall https://www.losingmyreligions.net/ But have the best marriage ever. So a net win for me, net loss for history.
7b, obv
Fantastic list; loved it! If this list is going to become a tradition, it might actually become my favourite part of Christmas.
Some answers:
4. Higher education is about signalling, gatekeeping, and (to a lesser extent) networking, not about education.
5. No, because back then we didn't /know/ that higher education wasn't about education.
8. It could be as good as a human; whatever it lost on the interaction it could make up for in patience, availability, versatility, etc. Also for sufficiently generous definitions of "sufficiently capable" it could in the extreme case just make itself physically indistinguishable from a human.
9. On the spectrum with《delicious⟫ at one end and ‷gross‴ at the other, a hair - with or without a person attached to it - is somewhere in the middle, in a region marked "not gross but I still don't want to eat it"
10. You missed out the most crucial set of quotation marks! The sentence should read:
Here is the "correct" ranking of quotation marks in different languages [...]
13. LSD fruit pastilles
14. Two dogs: 0.00001cp. Two people: 0.0001cp. Our brain hemispheres have *very* good communication; talking and canine body language are both incredibly low-bandwidth.
15. Probably around ‒0.000025 to ‒0.00005
16. All of them; marriage has been outlawed by the hegemonic hive mind that now rules what used to be humanity.
19. Massage (I'm thinking more eg. head massage than sports massage &c.); hot stone treatments; various forms of back manipulation, reflexology, etc. (they're sure as hell not science but they can certainly be art); various tantric practices; regluar ol' sex. If food counts for smell and roller-coasters count for.. well.. anything.. then I'm pretty confident these things should count too....
20. No, but people who've never worn clothes would probably want not to start even more strongly than they currently want not to.
22. Suits are gone?!
24. On a personal everyday level, "be a pain in the arse about it" is rarely the optimal strategy for persuading anybody of anything. Do please still feel free to be a pain in the arse nevertheless, though, if other people are giving you needless grief about your minority ethical views.
26. For the proletariat, sure. Everybody with money to burn, however, will gladly pay more to avoid having that much science in their food. The supermarket will have two brands of meat that are literally indistinguishable right down to the molecular level, but one will cost twice as much so that respectable sophisticated people can pay to make sure they're eating an animal that suffered and didn't want to die.
27. If they're here already, walking amongst us, how would we know?
28. Ooh, that's a clever formulation of the 'psychopath test'!
29. Films and books tell us the same sorts of cosy falsehoods and comforting half-truths that we would quite happily tell ourselves without any outside intervention. (ie. they /do/ mislead us about life ‒ but removing them wouldn't suddenly make us intellectually honest or rigorous.)
- #8 I often wonder about this. The future of the education system might hinge upon that very question. I would say no, after a certain age and for a certain threshold of conscientiousness. Before and below which, yes.
- #10. People simply don't realize that all Indian languages (as far as I am aware), use double quotes just like English. There is no character native to Indian languages that is the equivalent of quotes. In Tamil, there wasn't anything to denote quotes before it was adopted by copying English.
- #16. It is a terrible idea. Most marriages like most relationships require some level of secrecy.
- #17. Reminds me of that David Brooks essay titled The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake?
- #27. It is not possible in India. It has been legislated out of possibility. I learned during my first visit to India in 7 years, that everything and I mean every single thing requires an OTP (one-time password) text message. Maybe there is a return to dumb phones but not no phones.
19: Massage. Spas. Certain lotions and other skincare "treatments" perhaps, but definitely those first two.
Re: #19, if food counts for smell then fashion is a tactile art form. Consumer studies show that the very first thing people do in stores is feel fabric, stores are now arranged to facilitate/encourage this. Even when fashion is not accessible on a tactile level (museum, runways) its still very important for the designer to use fabrics/construction styles where just looking at them evokes a tactile memory. As far as their practical funciton goes, people obviously care about how their clothes feel to them, with many people prioritizing this over their visual appeal. Many people (including myself) also consider how their clothes would feel to other people as well.
Per #16, It's not naive to think some marriages would be helped with extra (mind-link) communication, but many would end immediately as the relevant spouse learned that certain opinions or ways of thinking were permanent/worse than they thought. The extreme example would be the number of spouses who would find out their partner thinks of them as essentially sub-human (which I think would be a stastically significant amount). Once you realize your partner doesn't respect you/is fundementally not attracted to you/thinks you're unintelligent in a fixed, static way it's very hard to come back. Not to be cheesy but spouses who saw through the mind link that the other person loved them could survive that experience, most others could not.
13. High ROI food:
The most important part of a food's taste is its flavor, which can be done exclusively through seasoning for convenience. Most of the difficulty in cooking comes from trying to improve texture, specifically getting multiple contrasting textures. Here is a rough recipe that is cheap, healthy, flavorful, and convenient to prepare:
1. Cook a pot of lentils however you like. High water = soup, medium water = chili, low water = beans. I usually do low-medium, but anything goes. Other beans are fine too, but lentils have high protein and are very small so they cook quickly. I use a pressure cooker for maximum convenience.
2. Season with salt, MSG, and a neutral oil like palm or canola. Add them a little at a time, mix it around, taste it, and stop when its good. Everyone has different taste here and its easy to overdo it.
3. Pick one or two random spices from your cupboard and try them out. I usually go with either onion powder + anything spicy or lemon juice, but it's difficult to go wrong here. Once you know how you like it seasoned, you can measure the proportions and make your own container of seasoning salt/oil to make this faster in the future.
Nutritionally you should basically be set for macronutrients from this, you can get away with eating this every day as long as you take vitamin supplements for micronutrients. Lentils give fiber, carbs, and protein, canola gives omega-3 fats. IANAD but so far despite eating this for 90% of my meals over several years I have yet to have any doctors tell me I'm deficient in anything whenever I get my bloodwork done.
If you really want want some texture variety all you have to do is add any random savory-compatible vegetable to the pot when you cook, I do onions or spinach until I run out (I don't grocery shop frequently enough to bother with this consistently).
If beans make you gassy you can alleviate this by soaking or sprouting them.
6: Tutors continue to carry social stigma (e.g. "Timmy couldn't figure it out himself, we had to get him a tutor").
19: Art that is meant to be physically touched is very hard to maintain. Ten thousand people can look at a painting without altering the painting, but if ten people rub their bodies against the painting, the painting changes (surface properties change due to oil/sweat, no longer hygienic to touch, etc).
22: The shift is permanent. It is not about casual vs formal, but about the material. Before the 20th century, cloth couldn't stretch. To fit over the head and shoulders, garments had to either "opened" and then later fastened with buttons/belts/etc. We are moving to a world where most garments can stretch, which obviates the need for things like buttons.
27: Already happening in many youth subcultures. I think most still carry phones. Strictly avoiding screen time and only making exceptions for non-algorithmic screen time (e.g. "we're going to watch this exact movie, then turn off the TV").