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Some of the Death Note's rules are really funny if you think of them as clarifications for users, necessary fixes to address exploits, or bugs that the Shinigami king isn't going to fix.

If a Death Note owner accidentally misspells a person's name four times, that person will be free from being killed by the Death Note. -> patch to fix exploit where users would attempt to brute force killing someone by writing every possible name in the Death Note

However, if the Death Note owner intentionally misspells the name four times, the owner will die. -> Patch fix to stop exploit where users would try to grant themselves immunity

The person whose name was misspelled four times on purpose will not be free of death by a Death Note. -> Necessary clarification because users thought they could grant someone else immunity

If the same name is written in two or more Death Notes within 0.06 seconds, the entry is regarded as simultaneous; the Death Notes will not take effect and the individual will not die. -> Rare bug related to When the same name is written in two or more Death Notes, the Note which was used first will take effect, regardless of the time of death. Root cause is server requests first check if the same existing request was already made. Simultaneous requests assume the other request is valid and delete themselves. Will Not Fix. Bug is rare and fixing it could result in new exploits related to repeatedly writing a person's name in the Death Note.

When you write multiple names in the Death Note and then write down one cause of death within 40 seconds of writing the first victim's name, the cause will take effect for all the written names. Also, after writing the cause of death, even if the conditions of death are written within six minutes and 40 seconds in the human world, the conditions will apply only to the victims for whom they are possible. Those for whom the conditions are not possible will simply die from the specified cause. -> Code bug caused by undefined and ambiguous input syntax. Will Not Fix.

Once the victim's name, cause of death, and conditions of death have been written down in the Death Note, the death will take place even if that Death Note, or the part of the note used, is destroyed before the stated time of death. -> Clarification to stop users from pointlessly destroying the Death Note

The Death Note will not affect those less than 780 days old. -> A patch added to get around various cultural arguments related to when something is considered "Human"

You cannot kill humans who are more than 124 years of age with the Death Note. -> Added in reference to a Shinigami meme

You cannot kill humans with less than 12 minutes of life left (in human calculations). -> Patch that addresses undefined behavior from edge cases where the victim dies naturally before the Death Note can normally take effect or during the window the user can write additional details to the cause of death.

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Venn diagrams don’t really work past 3 circles.

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The urban fantasy show I actually want to see is a hospital drama with a dedicated wing for supernatural illnesses.

Vampirism. Lycanthropy. Cheap spells gone wrong. A woman brought in for her prenatal has to be told her baby is a lindworm. Someone is literally being followed by the anthropomorphic personification of the Black Death.

Someone somewhere out there is having their perception of the world irreparably shattered by the knowledge that magic is real, and at the other side is a team of doctors who have to roll their eyes and pull out Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales because some high school kid tried to go Carrie with a cheap spellbook and turn all the kids at prom into frogs, and the doctors have to wrangle a couple dozen teenagers into admitting if they have a true love who can break the spell.

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ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

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Hello, @strange-aeons . I’ve been a fan of yours for several years. Unfortunately, your last video is very poorly researched, up to not understanding basic definitions. Please read at least a little bit of this.

TLDR: Rationality and rationalism are two different things. Rationality is not about relishing in being right, it’s about searching for the ways in which you are still wrong. And just subscribing to a philosophy is not enough to make you perfect, no one has argued that. Yes, MIRI failed and we aren't hiding from this fact, the community is pushing for regulations or a total ban on AI capabilities research at the moment. The community is very diverse and very queer. SA happens in any group and demographic, it’s a pretty disingenuous way to discredit us.

First, 101 rationality understanding real quick. It’s rationality, not rationalism. Rationalism is a philosophy about Pure Reason being enough for getting the accurate picture of reality. That is bollocks. Turns out you have to actually do science*.

Epistemic Rationality is basically about doing science. As in, trying to obtain the most correct picture of reality by all means available. Then Instrumental Rationality is about trying to make the best decisions with this information. It’s all very common sense and I would guess you’d actually agree with most of it if you just stopped strawmanning. For example:

I saw you agree with the assessment that rationalism is a philosophy that proclaims itself to be correct. I assume you actually think that the rationalist community is this way. That reminds me of people who attack science for ‘those big brain jerks think they already know everything!’ betraying a lack of rudimentary grasp on what science is. In both theory and practice it’s mostly about searching for the places where you are still wrong (to become less wrong, get it?) and correcting your mistakes time and time again**.

It’s actually very similar to how we leftists approach social issues, always checking our privileges, always listening to minorities and always expanding our understanding of oppressive structures. Can being a leftist make someone a bit arrogant and insufferable as if they’re already perfect and have nothing more to learn? Many such cases. Same with rationalists. It’s Dunning–Kruger effect, it’s the same for every field where the point is to become better. People start, quickly learn a lot, become a bit annoying about it, then they are humbled mostly by members of their own community.

Second, you decided based on vibes that the rationalist community is a bunch of sexist elitist tech bros. You didn’t collect testimonials like you often do for your other projects. It looks like you just read a bunch of articles and listened to podcasts made by other biased individuals and maybe looked for ridiculous sounding threads on forums to confirm your suspicions*** (or just took them at their word).

And while it is generally true that ‘something only men are interested in is never cool’, LessWrong adjacent rationality is not that. It’s a giant worldwide community that is very diverse. It is maybe half shy nerdy guys and the other half is women and queer people, also shy and nerdy (read neurodivergent, overwhelmingly). It’s the most pro-feminist and sex positive community I personally encountered outside of feminist and queer communities themselves – and it’s in Russia, even rationalists aren’t too woke over here. The situation is way better in Europe from what I’m able to see in the group chats. All my friends are rationalists and all of them are queer (I do talk to other people, don't you worry, I watch you!).

The community is also politically diverse as well. While the overwhelming majority is liberal, there are many left leaning people as well. There are (unfortunately) many libertarians in the mix and a few conservatives (those who don’t mind being disagreed with most of the time). The thing is the community tries to discourage political tribalism and foster an issue-by-issue discussion instead. So there’s always a percentage of people who disagree with the consensus opinion on every topic, discussion is always happening. And because people are trying to be all evidence-based over there, minds are actually being changed****.

The community isn’t without its biases. The entire MIRI idea was based on this fantasy of a group of math geniuses saving the world, finding the perfect solution even though no one believed in them (including many people within the rationalist community itself). Well, now the realization kicks in that they failed and the problem of AI alignment is way more complex than they thought (if solvable at all) and the actual solution is to push for AI regulations. That’s the state of the AI safety conversation right now. It’s either ‘shut it down’ or ‘put them under the heaviest scrutiny’. Almost no one thinks they have the time to change the course of the iceberg anymore. And yes, they do focus on existential risks but it’s not like they appreciate all the harm AI does on its way to destroy the world.

I’m not going to elaborate too much on how rationality techniques improve my life in ways big and small or we’ll be here all day (it’s mostly problem solving and conflict resolution). But the crucial thing is that LessWrong never claimed humans are perfect robots or have a potential to be perfect robots or can be easily turned into perfect robots. How shit human brains are at actual reasoning if left to their own devices is the entire point (that’s why it is not rationalism in any way).

An analogy sometimes used is martial arts. People can fight with no training, they have some in-born fighting capabilities. But hoo boy does training help. Actual training, years of practice, constant effort of keeping yourself in shape. Not a correct philosophy or one course. Does this sound exhausting? Well, you are neither a scientist nor a sportsman. But some people really do take self improvement seriously and really are this ambitious. Most are practising recreationally, however. And it’s fine. Few people who run twice a week believe themselves to be olympic runners. Few church goers believe themselves to be monks. Few regular leftists believe themselves to be revolutionaries. And few casual rationalists believe themselves to be big time researchers or scientists. But exercising a little is still better than rotting on the couch.

Speaking of couches. As I mentioned, the community is very sex positive. Very kink friendly, very supportive of polyamory and trying out new things just to experiment. Even in the perfect world with no patriarchy involved there would be a bunch of drama caused by just regular human behaviour. Unfortunately, there is patriarchy involved and there are a lot of women in the community. So, a bunch of sex scandals did happen. But framing it as ‘these people don’t respect women, what a surprise’ is highly misleading. By that line of reasoning you could discredit any movement or demographic. The tactic that is indeed used by the right all the time against trans people, immigrants, democratic party, you name it.

And LessWrong isn’t a country. If women felt unwelcomed, they’d leave, like they leave industries and fandoms. Like they leave most ‘intellectual’ communities because they are often hostile to women and queer people. LessWrong is a rare exception and women rarely leave it. They feel very welcomed, in fact. They own the place in many cases (like my first local meetup in one of Russian cities that was run by a wonderful lady).

Yes, it’s not perfect and people are constantly trying to make it better. But it's a general patriarchy thing that was not caused by LessWrong or rationality. The same way there’s rampant misogyny on the left as well and we talk about it but we aren’t cancelling the left, are we?

More about Ziz here.

About hpmor here.

* There’s a saying ‘Logic is true in any universe, but it doesn’t tell you which universe you are in’.

** In fact, even calling yourself a 'rationalist' is something that's being challenged. A preferred term is an 'aspiring rationalist', to empathize that no one here is actually rational, that we all are just trying to be a bit more rational to the best of our abilities. I personally don't use it but many people do.

*** Forums are very big and all sorts of controversial topics are discussed there. It’s not surprising to find threads about accelerationism or longtermism or decision theory that lead to ridiculous conclusions. All of those are controversial but people need a place to talk about it, that’s the whole point.

**** It is way more difficult on political issues than on random science topics. I hope I don’t have to explain why.

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It would be nice if people on the internet could approach each other with curiosity rather than condescension and assuming that the other person is a stupid idiot who has never thought of anything before.

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just because someone is your favorite character doesnt mean theyd have the same moral alignment as you. wheatley from portal wouldnt say "my pronouns are he/him, thank you for asking!" hed say "what uhh. what does that mean. um. you mean the nouns im most "pro" at is that what youre saying? i like to think im pretty pro,, at all nouns really. umm lets see... apple, kazoo, bubble, happy, door, umm... cake. not too fond of cake really i think its alright but. not my Favorite. if it were up to me though id eat a whole cake in one sitting. if i were a human. not a human, clearly. also not sure if id, know what cake even tastes like. if i tried it. no tastebuds. no Mouth... no. hole. anywhere on my body. haha um,, well anyways id. id say im pretty Pro Nouns. dont see why anyone wouldnt be... what? you mean what i Go By? what do you. ohhhh. ummm. the male ones. the male pronouns. if i can remember what they are... definitely the ones for guys. manly men. like me. pretty sure im a man,,," and you need to accept this

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wish there was a socially acceptable "skip this tutorial" button for when people insist on spending 10 minutes explaining something something i can already tell is irrelevant in the first 5 seconds

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A crossover of Spy x Family and Batman I made by photoshopping different panels together. I hope you enjoy

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the supreme irony of orson scorson corson's virulent transmisogyny is that ender from enders game is like one of the most chillingly and accurately transmisogynized characters in all of science fiction

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Wait, people pronounce ln with es in it? I thought it was just like "lun" or maybe "lin".

Actually I’ve always pronounced it Latural Nog

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If you are having a bad day, here's a triangle with all 90 degree angles to help distract you

We love the 270° triangle. So perfect, so even. The right equilateral triangle.

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After many years of selective breeding, they've finally developed a breed of phoenix that, rather than self-immolating itself into ash, instead roasts itself to a perfect internal 165° F while burning off all the feathers, resulting in an instant, ready-to-eat poultry dinner.

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crazy how every time a female character gets cliche misogynistic writing we have to explain to people again that fictional characters are not real and do not choose things for themselves.