r/slatestarcodex

I'm borderline autistic and in high school had selective mutism and didn't speak at all. Over the past 5 years, I've been working on my social skills: I now have the ability to have fulfilling friendships, to make people see me as human, to have good "deep" conversations, and so on.

However, I'm beginning to realize that most people will always see me as "off," particularly in group settings. I'm pretty sure I do everything right "textbook" style, the back-and-forth ping-pong is there, the words I say are correct, the tone is fine -- but this has only made it easier to track the moment where the light leaves people's eyes and they start avoiding me. This became particularly obvious after I recently had a minor glow-up and became more attractive: recently I joined a running group where people were happy to meet me, made tons of eye contact, etc, and then ~2 min into the conversation became visibly uncomfortable and stopped making direct eye contact, even though I was extremely sure that I was doing everything right.

I've previously been helped by old SSC/LessWrong posts describing other people's journeys. So I thought I'd start a conversation here: I'd love to hear stories from people who significantly improved their social skills. I'd love to know how they troubleshot things.

Examples of things I've found helpful:

• https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mwQZ6qsGXqwiZ6Zvy/how-my-social-skills-went-from-horrible-to-mediocre
• https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/x79wk9/how_to_rapidly_iterate_on_social_skills_with/
• https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/09/friendship-is-still-countersignaling/
• https://dispatchesfromtheautismwars.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and
• https://www.sympatheticopposition.com/p/how-and-why-to-be-ladylike-for-women

Moderna is up something like 150% today.

Here's an excellent article from Owl Posting, "How to build a cancer vaccine, and whether they will work this time", and here's the article I wrote on personalized mRNA vaccines and AI a while back.

I often think back to the famous 2021 tweet that added the fantastic “Torment Nexus” to our collective vocabulary. For those living under a rock, it jokes about how the best science fiction warns us about building awful futures, and tech companies (a self-proclaimed visionary at Silicon Valley, usually) ignore the warning for the profit.

I recently read a book that imagines a Torment Nexus that is much less in-your-face than the sci-fi fare we’ve come to expect. It’s called Maya: Seed Takes Root (which I’d backed on Kickstarter). At its heart is a biological singularity. Picture a network of millions of trees across the planet that every living person connects to regularly. It’s kind of like a biological VR internet where people tether to play, escape, and basically simulate anything their hearts desire.

What isn’t immediately obvious to the people is that the trees are also a humongous data server. They record every thought, desire, secret of everybody who tethers. And once a system has complete data on everybody alive, it becomes a single point of control. In this book, the people in control are a small ruling class obsessed with longevity, projections, and innovation. I don’t think it’s any accident that they resemble the entrepreneurs and capital managers of Silicon Valley.

The ruling class uses data, freely harvested by millions, to predict the future. And once it is measured, it can be managed.

Naturally, this got me thinking about our own world. The machine already exists. In fact, there are hundreds, but they aren’t branded as a Torment Nexus ™. We eagerly hand over our data to every product we touch. Google knows which bistro sandwich gives you indigestion. Amazon knows how much closet space you have left. How many companies know you better than your loved ones?

So I suppose the only question that matters is: is it worth it? Is it a good bargain? Do the Torment Nexuses of our world give us as much as they extract? Because if they allowed us to live out everything our hearts desired, perhaps that would at least be worth it. 

What do you all think?

Nick Land discusses Scott’s AI 2027 paper and other related topics: human extinction, AI safety, the simulation hypothesis, LLMs and AI religions - also Curtis Yarvin and neoreaction.

I constantly see arguments that the TFR (birth rate) falling is a mystery, and that maybe it's the "phones" causing depression, or not enough $$$. But I know plenty of non depressed and well off couples not having kids.

What I rarely see is the idea that it's modern entertainment in general. 100 years ago you didn't have TV, Movies, Vacations, Video Games, Cruises, etc. Kids get in the way of these. Businesses have a reason to cater to these couples too. They have more money that they want to spend.

Given there are now just a lot more options in life than kids and sex, are people just choosing not to let kids get in the way of these? If so, most of the solutions being attempted would not work, except for obscene $$$ incentives, or banning of various entertainment for non families. Like taking away videogames unless you do your homework and eat your vegetables.

very related EY post

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Jq73GozjsuhdwMLEG/superstimuli-and-the-collapse-of-western-civilization

This is a response to Scott in his last link roundup, when he wrote:

>The practical upshot is to start with paper, but what broader lesson should we take from this? Since all options are mathematically identical, any difference in player behavior must come from connotations. Since rock feels strongest, a naive child would choose rock. But since everyone knows that, a slightly smarter person would choose paper. But since everyone knows that, an even smarter person might choose scissors. But since . . . and the lesson of this graph is that when playing the average member of the population, all of this galaxy-brained thinking provides negative value, because in practice most people never leave the naive first level.

The Espionage Act of 1917 states it is illegal for any person "having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book... or information relating to the national defense... willfully communicates, delivers, transmits... the same to any person not entitled to receive it."

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 states it is illegal for anyone who "intending or knowing that the offense will benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent, knowingly... steals, or without authorization appropriates... a trade secret."

Going off the United States defintion of espionage I will classify Human Espionage as having the access to, or control over any knowledge relating to the dominance of the human species... willfully communicates, delivers, transmits to an opposing species not entitled to receive it. Or the intent/knowledge of the offense will benefit a foreign species over the human species.

Now obviously when I talk "foreign species" I am implying AI technology and the frontier labs are engaging in human espionage. I think the act of pursuing super intelligence is equivalent to telling mosquitoes how to unlock mosquito nets and pass around malaria to humans. What other technologies could be classified as this and what's your tier list of individuals to be tried for human espionage?

For context: in the NHS, there's a specific date where, around the country, an entire batch of doctors graduate from or enter training. It's as disruptive as it sounds.

It's been a pleasure watching the fresh batch of baby doctors arrive on the ward, all wet behind the ears, lanyards tight around their throats. It makes me feel nostalgic, protective, and very old, all at once.

My colleagues before this lot were excellent, so the bar was set high. You can absolutely tell the new ones are new, but they compensate for the gaps with genuine diligence and a willingness to learn, which is all I can really ask.

Although "gaps in knowledge" is the wrong phrase. Talk to them for five minutes and the knowledge is plainly there, filed and indexed and ready to be recited. What makes an experienced clinician is the intuition about which parts of it apply to the person in front of you. Chess grandmasters famously don't calculate more moves than amateurs; they just see the board in chunks, and the bad moves never make it to conscious consideration in the first place. Medicine is like that, except the board is a 78-year-old with three comorbidities who has stopped taking one of her medications and hasn't mentioned which.

It's one thing to know the drugs and the diseases cold. It's another beast entirely to have a messy, inconvenient human in front of you, and that description covers the other doctors as fully as it covers the patients. Eventually, through sheer exposure, observation and practice, you just know. The relevant information stops requiring a search through your head, or a panicked Google in the loo (I am not above this). You build up what I can only describe as a mental cache, log(n) for the things that matter. Inconsistencies start to make you itch before you can articulate why.

Then there's the tacit stuff, none of which appears in any curriculum. How to refer to General Surgery without being swatted away. The exact words that make a busy Med Reg give a damn. Tactical phrasing that gets an urgent CT head done urgently rather than eventually. Presenting a patient so it parses for a doctor as exhausted as you are, who lacks the benefit of having spent the last four hours with them. Shortcuts through the hospital. Where to liberate your fair share of patient coffee, the single perk of the job. How to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable, when clinically indicated. Which consultant will cheerfully field the silliest question, and which one will not suffer fools. The importance of booking annual leave early, so there is something to live for that isn't an ARCP. Getting along with your colleagues, because the NHS is a harsh mistress who will grind you down, and collegiality is a slow, reliable form of karma that they will be drawing on regularly. And, in due course, a tolerance for my worst puns.

I've been rather delighted by the FY1s and their impostor syndrome, which has a prevalence I estimate at 100%, give or take 0. They do their best to hide it, and you can always tell. I say that the shoe does fit, and eventually they'll stop noticing the blisters. They're fresh out of med school, and suddenly here is a human being who might die if you sneeze at them wrong.

Catch.

The most poignant case was the new core trainee. Lovely girl, fretting that she didn't know a thing. I told her, firmly, that if she knew everything already she'd be wildly overqualified, or at minimum a Senior Registrar. You're here to train, miss. It's in the name. You'll be fine.

On day one I told them that stupid questions do exist, and that I was issuing everyone a month of exemptions. The exemptions have been used. Expired ones remain welcome, because God knows I still ask colleagues, sotto voce, things I very much hope nobody senior overhears.

Sigh. I was there once, permanently braced for the moment someone worked out that I had no idea what I was doing. You pick up a few tricks, and hopefully avoid killing anyone en route. I think I've become the sort of senior I wanted when I started. Visibly stressed, clearly overworked, but always willing to make time for those need mine more than I do. I've certainly known worse.

As Black Wednesdays go, last week was far from the worst.

Hi all! Been thinking more about double cruxing for just/rational disagreement, writing an essay on it. It's been a long time since I've read about it and I'd appreciate your favourite recommendations. I was going to start with the CFAR posts and work outwards from there.

Thanks in advance!