Chapter 1: What are the announcements and feedback for this episode?
Oh, well, the thing I was going to say on the record is how lots of times I feel like I feel like Jennifer's mom sometimes when she struggles to use what we consider pretty basic software tools. Oh, dude, me too. Yeah. And now I'm like, I'm logging into Plex. I'm like.
somewhere there's a way to add friends i've done it before it's moved apparently and i can't find it and i ask the ais and the ais like go to here and here and 80 of the time they find it 20 of the time it's just not there and i'm like i feel like an old old person who can't set his vcr clock so it isn't blinking why why am i still alive i should just kill myself because i cannot interact with the modern world
For what it's worth, I feel that way too. And I monkey with computers for my day job. It's not you, it's them. And I mean that. Every website is getting worse and harder to navigate. So it's pure madness.
There used to be... You know what? Never mind. It used to be simple. Well, there used to be standardized menus. In the top left, it started with file and then edit and then the rest of the menu across the menu bar and it would drop down. Hmm, but now I sound like an old man.
No, we sound like people who are pointing out that things actually used to be better. This is a software... People who work in application development understand this too. There's this whole thing, oh, it's getting stagnant, so we've got to add new shit. And it's like, no, just keep it good. People liked it when it worked. They don't need it to do other stuff.
And now half the time menus are gone and there's just this little AI that you talk to. And it's like, hey, I'm your program AI. Tell me what you want to do and I'll get it for you.
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Chapter 2: What are Eneasz's concerns about podcasting?
And I'm like, I don't know.
Chapter 3: How does WSCFriedman interpret HPMOR?
I kind of want to access the tools and see the list of tools and see how I can monkey around with this. And it's like, nope. Tell me what you want to do. Do you want to add friends? I can do that for you. I'm like, how about you just give me the tool that takes me to the add friends menu and I will add in the email of my friends and it'll be good.
And it's like, tell me the email of the friend you want to add and I'll do it for you. I'm like, fuck you. I don't want a personal assistant managing my life. I want a damn tool.
And go ahead and give me your phone number, too, so I can text you updates as well. Oh, my God. It's madness. Madness, I say. Makes one almost want to become a serial killer. Trying to tie us into today's subject.
Ooh, I see. Oh, like the old Ted... I don't think... Was Ted Kaczynski a serial killer?
I guess... He tried to do some killings. I don't think he was the traditional serial killer.
Yeah, but that man had it figured out. He was like, we must return to the woods where we eat bugs and die in 40 of a communicable simple disease.
He had a version of something figured out. All right, I got to show the... Well, actually, this version... We're doing video again, so for a little out there, that's why it sounds that way. So only people who are looking can see my cool new mug that I got from Doof Media.
uh we also have a swag store that we never plug but it's in the show notes every time it's true but i wanted this mug so i got a cool new mug yeah and also only people who are paying can see that mug because we only release video to paying subscribers that's right if you want to look at our beautiful young not yet surgeried faces which is a reference you'll understand if you did we talk about this in the patreon content
Yes, we did. To reference, you will understand if you are a paying subscriber that that is what you need to do. Pay.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of rationality in HPMOR?
So he was the winner of that.
Oh, I did see that. Okay.
Yeah.
And he was also at Inkhaven for all of November, so I got to meet him. And yeah, he's a cool guy. Awesome. Yeah. The main reason I ran into this is because I was still keeping tabs on some of the people at Inkhaven, and obviously he was one of them. And I was like, oh, what? And so I read it the day it came out, and it is so good.
It's great. Yeah, I'm glad that you guys got to hang out and stuff too. That's really fun.
Yeah, but before we get into all that, we should do some feedback and quick announcements and follow-ups and just use that as a teaser. And I think part of the reason I mentioned Inkhaven is because I think that is part of the follow-ups and feedbacks.
Yeah, what you got?
Okay, cool. Sorry, I hate to derail us when we're just jumping in, but... No, no. I think it's a good idea to start out with these at the beginning and then jump into the main topic. Totally. Okay, cool. Two things about Incaven. The first is we talked about it last time, and last episode... And I mentioned how like awesome and transformative it was for me.
One of the questions on at, I think it was less online or something, Ben asked in his feedback, how much would you be willing to pay to like stay at Inkhaven for a month for this program I'm thinking of doing, the blogging program?
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Chapter 5: How does the concept of authority play into HPMOR's narrative?
Fundraiser was successful. They're good. Yeah, they're going to survive for another year. And for me, it was totally worth it. For a lot of people, I think like almost all the people, maybe with one or two exceptions, thought that it was absolutely worth the money. And I bring all this up because they are doing it again this April. April. April. Yeah.
Man, that's awesome. Uh, if I was a writer, I'd be super inclined to go. I think I'd love it. I just, I would, I don't even think that except my application, they'd probably be like, well, where's your blog? I'm like, what blog? So, uh, They are pretty selective. That makes sense. Which is, I guess, did they fill up on their last one?
I don't know what fill up means necessarily because Inkhaven can host a lot of people if they really need to. But they turned away, I think, between two-thirds and half of all the people who applied. And there were 41 people in total for the month.
I wonder if they could comfortably accommodate twice that. They should have twice that many people come, and maybe they wouldn't need to ask for as much money next year. But the people who are running this are smart and know more about this than I do, so I'm sure they have their reasons.
I think it's very good that they are selective with who they take. If you just let anyone in, then it wouldn't be Inkhaven, and it wouldn't be as valuable. A lot of what you're paying for is the peer group that you're getting, and therefore it's important that the peer group be...
you know, both around your experience level and also like really good and furthering you on and being someone that you can collaborate with. I guess this is at least partly one of the things that we're going to get into with the HPOMR review coming up. But yeah, the filtering and gatekeeping mechanism, I think, is also very valuable.
Well, and I think I agree because like on the one hand, it would be like, well, let's take all the money we can get, but then we're compromising what we're actually aiming for. And it's not merely a coworking space where there's peer pressure to write. It's you're working with peers who are going to help level you up. You'll level each other up.
And we can't do that if we have, you know, if a third of the class is totally novice, then it's just them learning from the people who are better at it. So we're going to the one in April.
Probably not. I don't think so. I've learned a lot. Cool. And I think the marginal gains of going a second time would be less now that I have internalized a lot of lessons of my one month there.
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Chapter 6: What are the main conflicts between characters in HPMOR?
Good. Okay. I wasn't sure if, I wasn't sure if they'd have done that. So if they hadn't, then they should.
Oh yeah. It was the front page when, yeah, when you go there, it was like on the front page, like here's all 41 people and here's like little star for each day that they post and you can click on each star and it'll take them to their blog post for that day. Oh, great.
Okay, cool. Then yeah, I'm glad. Yeah. So if you're inclined to think this might be for you, check that out and just read some people's experiences there. I still haven't figured out sub stack notifications. I get pinged for everything that some random people do, but not like the ones I, there's not a way to subscribe to like, just ping me about the stuff like these two people write about.
This is one of those old man moments. And there is no way to do it on Substack, at least not on the app. So it's not me complaining. Back in my day, it's not me saying it's too hard. It's me saying they should do it right and they won't.
Doing things right is something only old men care about, Stephen. No, that can't be true.
We should always be trying to do things right.
Agreed. All right. Should we quickly hit some feedback from the previous episode?
Yes, I appreciated Keiko Lukayam's take on this because I read it when we... So I think, speaking of spending too long talking about stuff, I think we spent way too long hemming and hawing about what you considered would be a huge drop in quality of the show. And... We're going to leave in, again, that verbal filler that I just used, unless the auto thing trips it and catches it or whatever.
But he had said, for me, TBC runs at 1.5 and some other podcasts I listen to run at 2x, despite the talking speed of the hosts being approximately the same, just because the content isn't as information dense and I don't need as much time to think. If TBC ends up having a significant amount of ums and uhs, I might just bump you to 175 and lose no time.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can be learned from Harry's journey?
But like... And it comes with all the religious baggage. And I think most people don't use sin in this way right now. It's more of a New Age liberal hippie interpretation.
And... You know, it alliterates better. The seven virtues and the seven vices are nice compare contrast. I think that's also why he went for seven, even though I do feel like the list was padded a little bit. But no, I loved it. I think you make a good point. I like that a lot. Yeah, the seven sins.
Although I think maybe the other reason he didn't do sins is that there's no virtuous amount of sin. Right.
So the way that he kind of like. But if sin is missing the mark, then there is a certain level of doing the thing which is on the mark. and as sin is like being far from that amount i mean what's the correct what's the correct sinful amount of elaboration like in just enough so that we're not confused and um mountain bailing oh yeah in fact you're right my my mistake i i forgot
He kind of changed the definition of virtue at the top of the post, which is nice because he explained what he meant, but he gave examples of the seven deadly sins like gluttony and others, right? And so he wasn't giving examples of traditional vices or failures of virtue necessarily. He was giving examples of sins. Yeah. So I can dig it, but then it wouldn't be seven virtues and seven vices.
I think that's the real win. It fits together better as an anthology this way.
And also, you know, if you're saying there's seven sins, then that kind of implies that there's some sort of rationalist pope. And, you know, maybe Ben can become the rationalist pope if he keeps working at this.
I mean, he's got other good posts on communication and stuff. I think that he's not a bad candidate for sure.
Yeah. He comes from a foreign country across the ocean. So checks that box.
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Chapter 8: How does HPMOR reflect on themes of mentorship and friendship?
But I do see cases where people are like, oh, well, you missed this part, therefore the whole thing's off or something. I don't know. Imagine somebody making an argument against... AGI concern because I gave the wrong number of whatever petaflops per second that the server farms can do and I was off by a factor of two.
And it's like, that does not invalidate the broader argument that I'm making because my argument doesn't rest on that number being precisely accurate. But I can imagine somebody saying, well, you were wrong here, then we can throw the whole thing out. And that seems pointlessly pedantic and self-destructively so.
Yeah, it's weird how much people seem to not care about details, even when they're important. Did you listen to Ask Who's recent post about the AI water usage? Yes. Isn't it about water usage? Yeah. It was a really good essay.
Oh, it was great. I whispered it in exasperation because I know people who make the arguments about water. It seems like every non-AI liberal that I know has that in their ready-to-shoot knockdown argument. I'm like, guys, even if it was true, which it's not, and I'd be happy to show you why it's not if you want to actually know, that's not the problem.
But the essay did a wonderful job explaining where he thinks they're coming from. And I think he's probably right to some extent. I want to see if I can get some people to read this who are fans of making the what about the water argument and see if they say, you know what, I guess I can kind of see where that guy's coming from. I think he might be onto something.
I think that saying, you know, it comes down to like a basically religiously motivated, pseudo religiously motivated desire to be unilaterally and unambiguously against an evil taking water from poor people. How could you put that way? It just, it makes it a great hill to fight on, on this point. But it's like, is it? Yeah. It's still just, it's still madness to me.
The post health explain it though, but it's still, it's still bugs me that people do this.
Yeah.
I mean, but I don't know if there's much of a point in pointing them at the post because like you said, when it was pointed out that the water estimation usage was off by 1,000 times, like many orders of magnitude, well, three orders of magnitude off from what the actual usage is, the article just changed one number and didn't change any words and nobody cared because like it's not about the water.
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