nomagicpill
That’s actually how I found Stratfor! Super cool to see the inside of an operation like that. Thanks for posting!
I realized soon after posting that it probably wasn’t in the best order, so thank you for confirming that! I chose chronological order out of laziness because that’s the order in which I add them to my repository.
My December 2025 Links post will be ordered by most to least interesting.
Any report back? I’m planning to implement some of these for a month or two and see how they work.
Here is my list (which riffs off yours):
Work uniform every day. These will be clothes I rarely outside of work so as to minimize the amount of work-personal blend. I’ll also make them more professional to fit in with the “I’m at work and being a professional” vibe.
Work phone in safe when I get home. I have a work-only phone because I’m on-call 24⁄7. I plan to put this in my phone safe when I get home and only check it at certain times to avoid checking it out of habit or fear.
No work in apartment. Separating physical locations is important. If I have to work from home, then I’ll go to my apartment complex’s study area.
No talking about work outside of work.
I’ve found an identity angle to this, where you become the type of person who doesn’t talk about work outside of work because that type of person doesn’t have a fulfilling personal life and thus resorts to work talk. I talk to a handful of people about work outside of work and it doesn’t make me feel good, which means the identity angle is working as it should. I will probably try to reinforce this.
Phrasing in the essay may have been poor: I’m not saying use those specifically nor asking anyone to memorize them, but rather just making sure to use words that convey different likelihoods. Your point about wildly different interpretations still holds.
Is this necessarily true? Say there is tighter nuclear regulation being enacted in 2031, or nuclear material will run out in the 2030s, or it expects peace to happen in the 2030s? Would these situations not reduce the likelihood of Iran having a nuke? I would expect with all things being equal the likelihood going up over time, but external events may cause them to decrease more than they increase.
What does “solving alignment” actually look like? How will we know when it’s been solved (if that’s even possible)?
I’m starting to think you’re trolling.
Views and challenges are unique for each mountain, hence not banal by definition.
How do you define greatness? Would climbing something that no one else has ever climbed before, despite being attempted multiple times by professionals, fall under your definition?
I find your “still decide to waste resources” argument poor. Where does the logic end? Should people have zero fun and live like beggars just to donate every last cent to fighting malaria? Why are you commenting on LessWrong when you could be out doing something altruistic?
I suspect you don’t know much about mountaineering based on your comments:
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“Mountaineering is a rather banal adventure”—have you ever climbed a mountain? If so, how dangerous was it? I doubt those that have climbed K2 consider it banal.
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“zero greatness in mountaineering”—there are still unclimbed peaks and new routes to already-summited peaks.
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“noble and altruistic ways to risk your life”—some people don’t care about nobility or altruism the way LW users do.
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See the third paragraph of the “Proximity” section.
One idea I have to help the AI revolution go well is setting up a consulting business to advise individuals and groups on AI-enabled scams, focusing especially on vulnerable populations (i.e., elderly people). AI-enabled scams are becoming more prevalent and effective as the models improve, become cheaper, and more information is available about a person online. Does LW think this is a good idea? Would you personally encourage me to pursue this as a side business? Can you think of a more effective side business for someone lacking technical skills? (LessWrong appears to have removed the “Questions” feature, so posting this as a Quick Take.)