I’m Georgia. I crosspost some of my writings from eukaryotewritesblog.com.
eukaryote
Karma: 3,627
One year later:
Yes, tandem is my alt account, I made the original. Really pleased this resonated with people. I just went to the Bay Secular Solstice and was thinking about these two again, and the work of making the world and ourselves the best we can be. Have one more bonus:
(Jet Lag: The Game is really good, if you like competitive game shows about train logistics. I recommend starting with the first season of Tag Across Europe.)
I do predict, empirically, that your writing is much more likely to be read if it is entertaining. The play is to make it both.
Yeah, so like, I do think there’s a skill issue component, and it’s possible to write stuff with popular appeal that is not about a subject people immediately care about. There are probably limits—like, it might be possible to get your reader invested in some niche piece of academic terminology drama or whatever, but it’s gonna be hard. But like, it is possible to get people to care about weird apparently-boring things.
One of my posts that got a lot of good reception both here and on the broader internet is There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically), which was on tree evolution, a subject I can’t imagine much of the audience previously gave a shit about. I didn’t exactly intend for it to go big, but I did put a fair bit of thought into helping the “my blog reader who is interested in biology but doesn’t know much about specifics” get why I thought it was interesting—stuff like “what kind of context might they have about convergent evolution”, the kind of “but a banana is technically a berry!” ‘knowledge’ of botany people have heard. Also, like, bringing them into my emotions and surprise about what I learned—which does make a piece easier to follow along. Most people have emotions and it’s great fun to read someone freak out about something.
(Like, I couldn’t say how much of this I was intentionally doing at the time, but it felt like the way to go and it seems like it worked in terms of convincing readers it was an interesting topic.)
A friend of mine is a big fan of the bergamot poisoning case. This is probably an unrelated effect but I’m no citrus expert.
Hahaha, it’s not a common phrase but I have heard it. I’ve read exactly one cookbook that recommended it as a done-ness test (I read a lot of cookbooks) but that was a cookbook for kids and probably trying to make cooking more fun, I really don’t think virtually anybody does it on the regular.
I think I see. I mean, I did post this hoping some people might agree with it or decide they agree with it. I mean, I guess my take is “some things outside the Overton window are bad and broader society is correct not to tolerate them.”
I think this is a weird misunderstanding of my issue here. I believe and endorse people saying a lot of things that are outside of the overton window and are taboo in many places. For instance: “Factory farming is immoral.” “It’s bad when wild animals feel pain.” “People should be able to get literally any surgery they want at any time.” “Every golf course in large cities should be destroyed and have checkerboarded apartments-and-parks put up over it.”
My issue is with the specific takes Cremieux has and ways he acts, which are racist, and harmful, and bad.
Thanks for sharing this.
Dear people who read this and agreement-downvoted (ETA: wrote this cause above comment was well in the agreement-negatives at the time of writing): Do you think this isn’t Cremieux’s account, or that the quoted example is an acceptable thing to say, or what?
Eh, he was there last year, I figure he might well go again. If I happen to hear that he’s definitively not attending this year (or, idk, if he ends up attending as a regular guest and not an Invited Author Guest, I take less umbrage with that) I’d love to go.
I was honored to be invited again to this year’s LessOnline—I really enjoyed the last one. However, I’m going to turn down this invitation as I’m uncomfortable being in the same company of invited author guests as Cremieux.
I didn’t know who he was last year, so after hearing concerning murmurs from various places, I looked into his work. Hoo boy. I don’t think that being interested in genetic differences between ethnic groups necessarily makes one racist, but I think it’s the kind of area where you have to be extraordinarily careful to proceed with caution and compassion and not fall into racist fallacies (coexisting in a terrible cycle with shoddy scholarship). I do not think Cremieux meets this standard of care and compassion.
Also, I get the sense he’s generally a jerk to those around him, which is not as big of a deal but is not helping. He reacts to challenges or criticism with insults, over-the-top defensiveness, and vitriol.
I don’t like what he’s about, I think the rationalist community can do better, and I do not want to be a special guest at the same event he’s a special guest at.
I hope that LessOnline goes well and that those who do go have a great time, and that my assessment is completely off-base. I mean, I don’t think it is, but I hope so.
Delightful! I DO enjoy knowing that!
Advice: The AI-generated diagram here doesn’t add anything and in fact indicates strongly that I wouldn’t want to read the post. One of the things about diagrams being so important and eye-catching associated with writing is that they communicate information, so if a diagram is clearly half-assed and wrong, it makes one assume that the text is too. (Half-assed is maybe not the word—minimally-assed? MS Paint stick figures would be fine here, for instance.)
There’s extraneous detail. The text is garbled and irrelevant.
I think if you use image-generating AI to make diagrams you should then edit it afterwards to make sure it’s actually, like, good and represents what you wanted, and add your own captions.
That’s definitely a good point and model vis-a-vis “this group/ideology is targeting these people specifically”.
I would also point out that specifically rejecting demographically-vulnerable people is likely to push more of them towards this ideology—though even if that effect weren’t in play, it would still be shitty to tarnish a broad group of generally fine community members by common demographic.
I think this is a horrible thing to say. The murderers are associated with each other; that gives you much more information than just knowing that someone is trans or not. There are many, many stellar trans rationalists. I’m thinking you maybe are thinking of the standout dramatic cases you’ve heard of and don’t know a lot of trans people to provide a baseline.
I don’t disagree with you about not wanting to read LLM output, but:
> Everyone in Cyborgism or AI Twitter or LW who talks a lot about talking a lot to LLMs for generic conversation, rather than specific tasks, seems to lose their edge and ability to think critically
- is a very strong claim to just throw out there. Everyone? Are you sure you’re not remembering the people who stand out and confirm your theory? You’re getting that they’re (for twitter users) “losing their edge and ability to think critically” from, like, tweets?
I’d suggest writing about stuff you’re interested in but that don’t feel crucial to get right, if that makes sense. A hobby, fiction, stories from your life, about your day, funny observations...
If you don’t have any other interests and just have to write about unimportant boring stuff—hey, yeah, sure, polish turds. I’m reading Ulysses right now and it’s, like, mythologizing some guys going around their everyday lives and drinking and being casually rude. And it’s one of the most beloved novels ever. Writing about boring everyday bullshit in ways that sound cool is a time-honored tradition.
Well, okay, you can also start writing about things you really care about—but I feel like there’s a kind of person who might read this who, like, has a thing they really care about—“we need to develop more mRNA vaccines”, maybe—and is going to write a mid essay about mRNA vaccines, and then they’ll sadly think “well, nobody liked that essay,” and never go back to it—and that would be sad. So if you’re going to practice via writing things that are very important to you, you might have to be willing to write on the same topic/thesis a few times.
(Also, if a person in your audience reads one essay from you and doesn’t like it, they might not be willing to read a second essay from you on the same topic even if it’s better now—so you might also want to show different iterations to different audiences, if your potential audience isn’t large. YMMV.)
Yeah, so I bet passive osmosis has in fact gotten you somewhere, but to go a bit beyond that -
Can you identify when you’re reading writing you like vs. writing you don’t like?
What’s the difference?
What kind of properties does writing you like have, compared to other writing? (Especially compared to writing that’s “just okay”, as opposed to actively bad)
Can you recreate these in your own writing?
What effect does good writing have on you? (This is sort of an art more than a science, but like—do you understand the thing better? Do certain sentences just like really hit you? What’s going on there?)
Okay, hm, interesting. (If I do write a “how to write good” post it’ll probably be more general + kind of aimed at people with different problems than yours, like not writing enough, so I’ll give this a shot now.)
Obviously I don’t know what you’ve tried already and it seems like you have tried some things (I looked up Dionysian Imitatio and was like “I think this person already knows more about writing methods than me”, haha), so apologies if these ideas are completely off the mark -
Questions and people misinterpreting you
In addition to asking the question, add a sentence or two of why you’re asking (or what you’ll do with the answer). This might help people give you more relevant info.
If people don’t know the answer to your question, they might just say Some Stuff in hopes it helps, so maybe give an explicit out in the form of “It’s okay if you don’t know” or something in case this is the issue. (Also, ask yourself if they’re likely to know the answer to the thing you’re asking them about. If you don’t think they will, you can still ask, but expect a worse or more irrelevant result.)
In case you don’t do this already: for shorter feedback loops, write in low-stakes forms where people can and will read it—lesswrong or other forums, social media posts, chats, fanfic, comics, whatever; calibrate on people’s response to that. (Obviously the style of writing might not be what you’re ultimately aiming for, but maybe there are consistent ways you’re not coming across clearly, in which case this will help you find those and workshop correcting for them.)
Conciseness
HUGE mood re: being concise, haha. Rounds of editing helps. You might try “challenge rounds” of editing where you try to make the thing absolutely as short as possible, or go in with the intent of writing the thing very directly. (And then you can add more back in if you like, but getting it there can be a good exercise.)
Voice
I think a lot of people struggle with writing voice, and there are guides out there on this. I don’t run into this problem with nonfiction so much, but I do think about it with fiction, so maybe some of this will help:
Play around with it, try out leaning into extremes. Write something in a style that is maximally silly, or that is poetic to the point of being esoteric, etc. (Writing things that you don’t “need to” write—things that are interesting to you but don’t feel crucial to communicate—can help here, just in terms of giving you mental wiggle room.)
I find that my metaphors and like use of language change after reading or writing stuff with strong voice—so you might try, I don’t know, reading authors that have voices you like, or writing fiction or poetry that is metaphor-heavy, etc, to develop the taste for that.
If you can’t write with the voice you want in the first place, schlockily edited-in is fine. Like, write a full draft. Maybe you go “this is bad, this doesn’t have as much description as I’d like.” Bold at least 5 spots throughout the piece where you think you could add some visual description. Write em in. Reread it and see if you like that better.
Structure
Think about the reader experience.
Think about the process you want the reader to go through. FOR INSTANCE:
News article style: start with the most important thing, add more stuff in descending order of importance
Make some points of reasoning step by step. Lay out several facts/assumptions and then arrive at a conclusion.
Explain that you will be offering a list of unconnected ideas, then do that.
A story told in temporal order, giving more details in the most interesting or relevant parts.
...Or something else, a combination, etc, etc. The point is, go in with a strategy.
In most writing, the default is that people won’t read a thing. So you want to hook them and make something that’s nice to read.
Some things that help with this: on an interesting topic, phrased in an interesting way, starts with something surprising, easy-to-follow reasoning, has jokes, is short.
Also, don’t assume the reader will read to the end.
Making an outline and expanding out from it can help a lot to keep you on track, I do this especially with longer form stuff
😅 You know, I was thinking of calling it “Learn to write good BEFORE you have something worth saying”, but figured I’d get some people rolling their eyes at the grammar of “write good” in a post purporting to offer writing advice. This would however have disambiguated the point you mentioned, which I hadn’t thought about. Really goes to show you something or other.
Glad I wrote this down, glad people seemed to think it was interesting. I thought it was interesting too! From a young age I’ve thought that a big draw of text is being able to give readers a sense of extraordinary experiences. I haven’t had that many extraordinary experiences in my life, which is broadly a good thing, but it’s cool that you can go out and make something happen to you and then other people will indeed be interested in it.
I have thoughts on Infinite Jest, which the current margin is too narrow to contain. Great book.
Update on the research side:
It looks like the results from this Phase 2A safety trial have not yet been published, but the results from the earlier smaller-scale (10 person) Phase 1 trial were a bit before I posted: Safety and Tolerability of ShigActive™, a Shigella spp. Targeting Bacteriophage Preparation, in a Phase 1 Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Clinical Trial by Chen et al (2024).
Update on the personal side:
As I was told was likely and as I expected, I have had no apparent long-term medical problems since this. This was a dope-ass way to spend my 30th birthday.
Consider signing up for a challenge trial! You may feel the worst pain you have ever felt in your life but
that pain will also feel youyou will get money and a good story out of it, and also, like, contributed to potentially-lifesaving medical research or whatever.Give it a look! (That site lists worldwide trials—if you’re in the US, being in or being willing to travel to Baltimore helps. Baltimore is legit a great city. I would happily move there if it made sense for me to. Check out the National Aquarium and the American Visionary Art Museum when you don’t have whatever wacky disease you’ll surely get.)