A blog about math, philosophy, puzzles, politics, and more.
In this post I won’t wax poetically about the importance of voting. Instead I’ll tell you the most important things to know about voting in this election as efficiently as I can, and then talk a bit about what else you can do besides voting. Part A: The most important thing to know. Tell your … Continue reading A pragmatic guide to voting in the 2020 election
(This post is meant to persuade you to vote. If you already want to vote but don’t have a concrete voting plan, check out this post.) In 10th grade civics class I learned about two moral arguments in favor of voting in elections. The first of these appeals to a notion of civic duty: as … Continue reading Your vote matters — probably more than you think
In December 2020, I made 100 probabilistic predictions for 2021. As promised, I’ve come back to evaluate them on two criteria: calibration and personal optimism/pessimism. I also challenged readers to compete with me. More on this later, but first, here are my predictions, color-coded black if they happened and red if they didn’t. I. US … Continue reading Grading my 2021 predictions
[Originally posted on the EA Forum] When I ask effective altruists who their hero is, it’s always the same names. Peter Singer. Stanislav Petrov. Jonas Salk. No one ever mentions Ea-nasir, the ancient Sumerian coppersmith and businessman. Which is a shame, really. I guess it makes sense. Most people haven’t heard of him, and those … Continue reading Introducing EA-nasir
Many in the rationalist sphere look down on tribalism and group identity. Paul Graham writes that identity interferes with people’s ability to have a productive discussion. Julia Galef seconds this view (though with exceptions), devoting a chapter of Scout Mindset to the ways that identity interferes with clear thinking. Eliezer Yudkowsky makes a similar point … Continue reading Can group identity be a force for good?
The Democratic primary for mayor of New York City is coming up. Whoever wins the primary will almost certainly be the next mayor. Elections in New York City use instant runoff voting (more commonly called ranked-choice voting by non-nerds). To spell out what this means: Voters rank their choices (in this case, their top 5 … Continue reading My NYC mayoral ballot
There have been tons of takes and articles written about GameStop. The vast majority are really wrong, and most of the good ones assume a lot of background. This post is my attempt to provide an explanation of what happened without assuming any background. This necessarily involves lots of simplifications (so if I get something … Continue reading When the game stops, where will the buck stop?
In December I ran a pseudorandomness contest. Here’s how it worked: In Round 1, participants were invited to submit 150-bit strings of their own devising. They had 10 minutes to write down their string while using nothing but their own minds. I received 62 submissions. I then used a computer to generate 62 random 150-bit … Continue reading Pseudorandomness contest: Prizes, results, and analysis
In December 2019, I made 132 probabilistic predictions for 2020. As promised, I’ve come back to evaluate them on three criteria: calibration, personal optimism/pessimism, and performance relative to PredictIt (and an anonymous friend who sent me their predictions for some of the events). I’ll get to all of those, but first, here are my predictions, … Continue reading Grading my 2020 predictions
Just as I did last year, I have some probabilistic predictions for 2021. In January 2022 I will return to grade them, just as in a week or two I’ll grade my 2020 predictions. This year the predictions fall into four categories: U.S. politics (#1-17 below), COVID (#18-39), Miscellaneous (#40-53), and Personal (#54-100). Note that … Continue reading Predictions for 2021
Unexpected Values 