dr_s

Karma: 3,570

dr_s 14 Jan 2026 16:25 UTC
10 points
9
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Strong, bipartisan leadership for resistance to Trump.
I am going to be honest, if you asked me pre-Jan 6 “how many people would be shot if they attacked en masse the Capitol with Congress in session” my guess would have been much higher than one. This isn’t a case of protestors just doing their business in a public street and getting into some heated argument with police that degenerates into a fight. It was an attempt to interfere with government, and possibly a direct threat to the life and safety of elected officials. Even if you think it was warranted you would be an idiot to think it would be safe. You don’t storm the Bastille and expect no fire in return. A State’s whole thing is a monopoly on violence, it’s entirely expected that an attempt to violently subvert that State’s own internal mechanisms would be met with violence in return.

dr_s 9 Jan 2026 9:58 UTC
4 points
1
in reply to: marisa’s comment on: Why I Transitioned: A Case Study
I don’t really, I don’t feel like I know the data well enough, I was just talking about this on the assumption that what the post describes (looking for a community) is what’s going on for at least a non-insignificant amount of people. My point was just, if what’s happening is simply people who are looking for a community, then obviously it’s worse if they find a community which requires them to undergo medical procedures than if they find one that doesn’t (since unnecessary medical procedures are always a net negative, and the benefits would be the same anyway).

I don’t think social contagion is like, an impossible concept. People seem very fixated on some things being ontological truths about you, but even if dysphoria is innate (it seems to be), it hardly seems impossible that if you have some kind of psychological hangup you may misidentify it as being trans, just as you describe the opposite, of being trans and misidentifying it as something else. The latter used to be far more common in the past because of course being trans was a thing no one would really talk much about and generally framed negatively. It still suffers quite a lot of discrimination but also has more positive discourse and more public communities so I think it’s entirely possible for either direction to happen, though probably the “am dysphoric/trans but stay in denial about it” is still more common. That doesn’t mean it needs to straight up become an epidemic, which for me would entail something like, not only a few non-trans people mistakenly think they’re trans, but so many of them doing so that they then convince more non-trans people that they must be trans, and the community is straight up dominated by non dysphoric people who just memed themselves into believing they’re trans. I don’t think that’s happening and I don’t think that sounds likely. But a few sparse episodes of lonely people who are just desperate to fit in somewhere and end up persuading themselves that the one community where they’re being accepted might be where they belong in other ways too? That probably happens, it feels like it’s just a common human thing.

dr_s 8 Jan 2026 16:42 UTC
5 points
1
in reply to: davekasten’s comment on: davekasten’s Shortform
Creative careers like “artist” are incredibly depreciated because supply vastly outstrips demand. There’s not a lot of art you need; people don’t get their walls painted with frescoes any more, they don’t get portraits. All art is highly reproducible in one way or another (e.g. art for games, art for book covers, etc). Meanwhile it looks fun or at least somewhat fulfilling, definitely more stimulating than doing some boring drudgery, so ton of people try. As a result anyone who wants art, especially at a low-ish level, has an embarrassment of wannabe artists to search for the lowest price (which sometimes can be “zero”—the infamous “exposure” or even negative!).

dr_s 8 Jan 2026 15:48 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: marisa’s comment on: Why I Transitioned: A Case Study
I wouldn’t really know the numbers. My general point is what I said, that to acknowledge/consider yourself as trans seems like a necessary step to actually transitioning. There’s gotta be people who have dysphoria and simply never really think about that option, misunderstand it for some other sort of malaise and live with it without realising it. Anyone who transitions isn’t just dysphoric, they went through the additional step of realising it too.

dr_s 7 Jan 2026 9:53 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: marisa’s comment on: Why I Transitioned: A Case Study

To what degree do you think simply asking “am I trans?” actually causes someone to be more likely to medically transition?

So first, while I wrote it like that in the post, it was in the context of joining a community, so I actually meant probably something a bit more advanced than just literally idly wondering whether you are trans (something I’ve probably done at least once in my life myself), even just to answer in five seconds flat “nah, I’m not”.

But second, mathematically speaking, yes, I still think that is obviously causative. There are two groups of people: those who have asked themselves at least once, “am I trans?”, and those who never have. Those who never have have no reason to ever medical transition. Those who medical transition all must at some point have asked themselves “am I trans?”. Furthermore they must have answered that question with “yes” the last time they asked it, obviously. And obviously the path to any medical transition always starts with asking yourself “am I trans?” and answering “yes”; it is a necessary albeit not sufficient condition.

So yes, obviously there’s a causative link there! I don’t know how strong but it’s logically inevitable that there is one.

But that B statistically does not “cause” C because the full strength of the correlation is explained by the dysphoria variable, A (cf The Book of Why).

If you have dysphoria but never ask yourself whether you’re trans, how are you going to even get to medical transition? Suppose having dysphoria and living in a civilization that somehow has the capability for medical transitioning but lacks completely a construct of “transness” (let’s say they use the technological capability only for farfetched purposes like some deep cover infiltration or such). So you can have dysphoria in this society but also never ask yourself “am I trans?” because the word and concept don’t exist. Wouldn’t that make you less likely to medically transition?

dr_s 6 Jan 2026 13:32 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: marisa’s comment on: Why I Transitioned: A Case Study

If you’re willing, could you elaborate on this argument? It sounds like you think there is a causal connection (not just a correlation) between “maybe I’m trans” and medical transition. Is that right? If yes, I would be really interested to hear how quantitatively strong you think the causal relationship/evidence is.

I mean, I’m just comparing it to virtually any other community. The vast majority of communities do not require or encourage surgery to join or fit in (exceptions: some religions, and maybe if you’re like, in a body-mod centred community). Obviously not all trans people medically transition, but all who medically transition are trans? I’m a bit confused by the question because obviously there is a causal connection. If there wasn’t a casual connection you’d expect equal odds for a cis person to just up and go medically transition for no reason whatsoever.

dr_s 5 Jan 2026 10:26 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Auspicious’s comment on: Why I Transitioned: A Case Study

Maybe I’m way too pessimistic, but for many people, it may be very difficult (or even impossible) to otherwise satisfy this desire.

To be fair, does that say more about our society right now than anything else. Be it due to gender roles or general social norms, this degree of tight connection that some groups (like trans communities) seem to form shouldn’t be that alien to us in general or require any particular sexual orientation, and yet.

dr_s 5 Jan 2026 10:24 UTC
8 points
0
in reply to: marisa’s comment on: Why I Transitioned: A Case Study

I see phrasing like this a lot, I don’t mean to pick on you in particular, but in general I think there is a level of rhetorical alarmism with language like this that isn’t justified by the medical reality, and IME people using phrasing like this rarely have a gears-level understanding of trans medicine (I don’t know if that’s true for you or not).

To be fair, virtually any kind of medical intervention at all seems too much if all your goal is is “find a group within which you can fit and feel loved”. Most groups don’t require that. Not saying being trans requires it as some kind of ritual—in fact afaict people in this sphere tend to be very accepting of all degrees of transitioning, including only social—but rather that if you decide “maybe I am trans” you will be more likely to undergo such medical procedures than you would ever be if you decided “maybe I like cosplay” and hung out with that community.

Agree with you that as a transhumanist one shouldn’t really see mutilation per se as a tragedy, though it obviously is the kind of thing that’s high stakes—if you’re wrong then you lose something that’s not recoverable. So I can buy the argument as far as “this is the kind of thing you really need a very low false positives rate on”.

dr_s 23 Dec 2025 7:42 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: cousin_it’s comment on: Technoromanticism
<insert Austin Powers ‘RUN, IT’S GODZILLA!’ scene>

dr_s 23 Dec 2025 7:40 UTC
3 points
0
on: Technoromanticism
For what it matters, I still use an MP3 player. I’ve had people look at it a bit bemused. It’s still the most useful way of listening to music I can imagine. Super simple, doesn’t stop working when my train is inside a tunnel, and isn’t as desperately battery-hungry as my phone (which I generally need charged for more useful reasons anyway). That’s an obvious case of a piece of tech that was really convenient and useful and only got phased out because it was a pain from the seller’s side to support (it would have been easy if anyone had said “fuck it” and started selling DRM-free music but of course can’t do that, what if you copied it).

dr_s 20 Dec 2025 7:32 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Rajmohan H’s comment on: In defence of the human agency: “Curing Cancer” is the new “Think of the Children”
Sure, I didn’t want to discount that—and in theory the ideal for automation was always “sandpaper off the edges of the most dangerous, tiring, and mind-crushing work, and allow all humanity to reach its best potential doing whatever they find fun”. In a perfect world we would both have robots that harvest vegetables and excavate minerals while every human would be a scientist, an artist, or at least a manager of said robots, planning at a higher strategical level rather than just toiling.

But in practice that seems hard to square both given our economic system and its incentives, and in general the harsh material reality of which tasks are easier and harder for robots. At this rate AI scientists will happen way before we get robotic fruit pickers.

dr_s 19 Dec 2025 10:14 UTC
10 points
0
on: In defence of the human agency: “Curing Cancer” is the new “Think of the Children”
I think if someone put the argument succinctly as “would you be ok then living in a world in which you suffer no disease but also matter nothing and are just kept pampered and ineffectual in a gilded cage”, then the views would be rightfully be a lot more split. While playing cancer’s advocate on this is the logically sound endpoint to it—yes, some more people dying of cancer is an acceptable lesser evil compared to humans just losing meaning—it may help to step back from that particular motte and direct the assault from a different perspective. We have plenty of dystopian stories in which the dystopia is “things are really good except there’s no freedom”.

That said there’s also another angle to this: a lot of people don’t get to do cancer research, or any other intellectually meaningful activity. They just do menial, often crushing work. To them cancer is just a danger and not an enemy they can fight on even ground. Anyone who already feels like they have no control or meaning has only to gain from a world in which they still have no control or meaning, but at least have their material needs met.

(of course realistically that is also a ridiculously optimistic view of where AI-mediated disempowerment leads us...)

dr_s 15 Dec 2025 16:31 UTC
20 points
16
in reply to: Jan Betley’s comment on: Jan Betley’s Shortform
At this point the only meaningful difference between quasi-belief and belief seems to be “has an inner life and is able to reflect upon its own mind and beliefs”. Other than that, if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and knows exactly in which direction to fly to reach its winter migration destination like a duck...

dr_s 11 Dec 2025 8:08 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: Thomas Kwa’s comment on: Cole Wyeth’s Shortform
I think it’s just a matter of what’s more technologically achievable. Building LLMs turned out to be a lot easier than understanding neuroscience to a level even remotely close to what’s necessary to achieve 1 or 2. And both of those also require huge political capital due to needing (likely dangerous) human experimentation that would currently be considered unacceptable.

dr_s 11 Dec 2025 8:06 UTC
2 points
2
in reply to: Daniel Kokotajlo’s comment on: Cole Wyeth’s Shortform
It would be slower for sure, at least, being bound to human dynamics. But “same problems but slower” isn’t the same as a solution/alternative. Admittedly better in the limited sense that it’s less likely to end with straight up extinction, but it’s a rather grim world either way.

dr_s 10 Dec 2025 10:01 UTC
15 points
0
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: Cole Wyeth’s Shortform
I feel like intelligence amplification is plenty destabilising. Consider how toxic intelligence discourse is or has been right now already:
- some people argue that some ethnic groups (usually their own) has inherently higher intelligence, which makes them better
- other people who want to push back against the former then go the other extreme and claim intelligence doesn’t exist at all as an even partially measurable quantity
And what would you do with your intelligence amplification method? Sell it? So now richer people, and richer countries, are the ones to first reap the benefits, amplifying gaps in inequality which again have destabilising effects.

A lot of this ends up in similar places as aligned ASI, if you only consider the political side of it. Similar issues.

dr_s 7 Dec 2025 11:54 UTC
34 points
5
on: Eliezer’s Unteachable Methods of Sanity
This is why, in a much more real and also famous case, President Truman was validly angered and told “that son of a bitch”, Oppenheimer, to fuck off, after Oppenheimer decided to be a drama queen at Truman. Oppenheimer was trying to have nuclear weapons be about Oppenheimer’s remorse at having helped create nuclear weapons. This feels obviously icky to me; I would not be surprised if Truman felt very nearly the same.
I did sympathise with Truman in the way that scene is portrayed in Nolan’s movie more than most seem to have (or even, that the movie intended to). But I am not sure that wasn’t just Truman making the bombs about him instead—he made the call after all, it was his burden to bear. Which again sort of shifts it from it being about, you know, the approximately 200k civilians they killed and stuff.

dr_s 3 Dec 2025 17:23 UTC
6 points
2
in reply to: leogao’s comment on: Buck’s Shortform
I think they are because in practice they just didn’t produce the same amount of economic growth. And for most people, their direct impact of these things are entertainment applications, or using them at work (where sometimes they feel like they make things worse). Meanwhile I remember hearing a story of a woman (someone’s grandma) who was in awe of the washing machine they had just bought because well, it had saved her hours of daily gruelling work. And that’s more impactful to one’s life than almost anything computers or the internet have done.

dr_s 3 Dec 2025 10:11 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Tokarak’s comment on: The predictive power of dissipative adaptation
One last thing: I misunderstood the point you were making when you were talking about blackholes. The point you were making was ‘”What maximizes entropy” is a bad morality’; what I thought I was reading was ‘dissipative adaptation does not work because it predicts that we will into a black hole and Earth developed complex life because the complex life did some nuclear fission after it was developed’.
My point was a bit more complex. Yes, there’s absolutely the morality argument—obviously something that prescribes “thou shalt make black holes” is a dumb morality and I will not follow it. But there’s also a predictive power argument. At a planetary scale, putting aside all the complexity issues you rightly bring up, it may be possible that life truly maximises entropy production given certain constraints. The Earth would have more entropy as a black hole, but the potential barrier to reaching that state is enormous, and so we’re stuck in the local maximum of a planet teeming with life instead. But Beff and e-acc carry the argument all the way to the universal scale, and that’s where it breaks down, because at the universal scale, black holes absolutely do dominate entropy production, and everything else is a rounding error, so life becomes inconsequential for the ledger.
To make a practical example: suppose future humanity becomes a Kardashev 3 civilization, using up all the energy output of the Milky way and dissipating it at cosmic background temperature via radiation. That makes for an entropy production of approximately $3 \cdot 10^{35} W / K$ . Now suppose that this powerful civilization at some point predicts that two stellar black holes, each of 3 solar masses, will at some point in the future merge near an inhabited system, and this will cause trouble. With their immense power, this civilization finds a way to change the trajectory of one of those black holes, avoiding the merger, and save the system. Well, with that single change this civilization has averted the creation of roughly $3 \cdot 10^{54} J / K$ of entropy, that is, over 3 trillion years’ worth of their current entropy production! The civilization that does this will forever be a net negative in entropy creation for its whole existence, regardless of how much it splurges on using energy otherwise.
So, entropy production itself does not predict life at universal scales. It can’t. Life is just a tiny rounding error several digits down on that balance sheet. And even if on some local scales it may be possible that life is an avenue to maximizing entropy, overall those goals don’t stay aligned all the way to life taking over the universe.
the only point I disagree on is that I think that a tree is in fact a more efficient dissipator than no tree
I think that genuinely depends on details like the precise colour of the soil and efficiency of the plant. We know photosynthesis is not very efficient at energy conversion (IIRC the top efficiency belongs to the sugar cane and is a meager 8%). Also, you could probably make a more dissipative surface by putting up a very dark, very efficient solar panel and then using it to power a heater. I suppose there’s an argument that solar panels are created by life but that seems like a very tortuous way for thermodynamics to work.

dr_s 1 Dec 2025 18:36 UTC
10 points
7
in reply to: Random Developer’s comment on: ricraz’s Shortform
Yeah, it’s not like the point of outreach is to mobilise citizen science on alignment (though that may happen). It’s because in democracy the public is an important force. You can pick the option of focusing on converting a few powerful people and hope they can get shit done via non-political avenues but that hasn’t worked spectacularly either for now, such people are still subject to classic race to the bottom dynamics and then you get cases like Altman and Musk, who all in all may have ended up net negative for the AI safety cause.