Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Contra Stone On EA Jun 23, 2024

Show notes

Lyman Stone wrote an article Why Effective Altruism Is Bad. You know the story by now, let's start with the first argument:

The only cities where searches for EA-related terms are prevalent enough for Google to show it are in the Bay Area and Boston…We know the spatial distribution of effective altruist ideas. We can also get IRS data on charitable giving…

Stone finds that Google Trends shows that searches for "effective altruism" concentrate most in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston. So he's going to see if those two cities have higher charitable giving than average, and use that as his metric of whether EAs give more to charity than other people.

He finds that SF and Boston do give more to charity than average, but not by much, and this trend has if anything decreased in the 2010 - present period when effective altruism was active. So, he concludes,

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-stone-on-ea

Links for May 2024 Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can't guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-may-2024

A Theoretical "Case Against Education" Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

There's been renewed debate around Bryan Caplan's The Case Against Education recently, so I want to discuss one way I think about this question.

Education isn't just about facts. But it's partly about facts. Facts are easy to measure, and they're a useful signpost for deeper understanding. If someone has never heard of Chaucer, Dickens, Melville, Twain, or Joyce, they probably haven't learned to appreciate great literature. If someone can't identify Washington, Lincoln, or either Roosevelt, they probably don't understand the ebb and flow of American history. So what facts does the average American know?

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-theoretical-case-against-education

What Is Going On In IFS? Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

In my book review of The Others Within Us, I wrote:

[An Internal Family Systems session] isn't supposed to be just the therapist walking you through guided imagery, or you making up a story you tell yourself. The therapist asks you "Look inside until you find the part that's sabotaging your relationship", and you are supposed to discover - not invent, discover - that your unconscious gives it the form of a snake called Sabby. And you are supposed to hear as in a trance - again, not invent - Sabby telling you that she's been protecting you from heartbreak since your last breakup. When you bargain with Sabby, it's a two-way negotiation. You learn - not decide - whether or not Sabby agrees to any given bargain. According to Internal Family Systems (which descends from normal family systems, ie family therapy where the whole family is there at once and has to compromise with each other), all this stuff really is in your mind, waiting for an IFS therapist to discover it. When Carl Jung talked about interacting with the archetypes or whatever, he wasn't being metaphorical. He literally meant "go into a trance that gives you a sort of waking lucid dream where you meet all this internal stuff".

Some IFS therapists chimed in to say this was wrong. For example, DaystarEld:

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/what-is-going-on-in-ifs

Book Review: The Others Within Us Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

Internal Family Systems, the hot new psychotherapy, has a secret.

"Hot new psychotherapy" might sound dismissive. It's not. There's always got to be one. The therapy that's getting all the buzz, curing all the incurable patients, rocking those first few small studies. The therapy that was invented by a grizzled veteran therapist working with Patients Like You, not the out-of-touch elites behind all the other therapies. The therapy that Really Gets To The Root Of The Problem. There's always got to be one, and now it's IFS.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us

Choose Book Review Finalists 2024 Jun 02, 2024

Show notes

It's time to narrow the 150 entries in the Book Review Contest to about a dozen finalists. I can't read 150 reviews alone, so I need your help.

You'll find the entries in six Google Docs (thanks to a reader for collating them):

Please pick as many as you have time for, read them, and rate them using this form.

Don't read them in order! If you read them in order, I'll have 1,000 votes on the first review, 500 on the second, and so on to none in the second half. Either pick a random review (thanks to AlexanderTheGrand and Taymon for making a random-review-chooser script here) or pick whichever seems most interesting to you. List of all books reviewed below.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/choose-book-review-finalists-2024

Profile: The Far Out Initiative Jun 02, 2024

Show notes

Suffering is part of the human condition, except when it isn't.

I met a man at an ACX meetup once who claimed he has never felt anxiety, not even the littlest bit. His father was the same way, so maybe it's genetic.

Some people feel more pain than others. The "more pain" category includes some big demographic groups like redheads, who seem to feel some types of pain more intensely and may need up to 20% more anaesthetic, though their exact processing differences are complicated. But there are also various lesser-known genetic conditions that can make bizarre things - water, light touch, mild temperature changes - excruciatingly painful. The most exotic cause of this syndrome has to be platypus venom, which is both painful in and of itself and also seems to increase the body's overall capacity to feel pain; for years after a platypus scratch, every tiny scrape will hurt worse than usual.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/profile-the-far-out-initiative

Mantic Monday 5/13/24 May 30, 2024

Show notes

Manifold pivot || Lab leak hindcasting || CFTC extra-double-bans prediction markets

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-51324

Highlights From The Comments On Hanson And Health Care May 30, 2024

Show notes

Most recent post here.

Table Of Contents:

1: Comments From Robin 2: Comments About/From Goldin et al 3: Comments From The Rest Of You Yokels

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-51324

The Emotional Support Animal Racket May 28, 2024

Show notes

If you're from a country that doesn't have emotional support animals, here's how it works.

Sometimes places ban or restrict animals. For example, an apartment building might not allow dogs. Or an airline might charge you money to transport your cat. But the law requires them to allow service animals, for example guide dogs for the blind. A newer law also requires some of these places to allow emotional support animals, ie animals that help people with mental health problems like depression or anxiety. So for example, if you're depressed, but having your dog nearby makes you feel better, then a landlord has to let you keep your dog in the apartment. Or if you're anxious, but petting your cat calms you down, then an airline has to take your cat free of charge.

Clinically and scientifically, this is great. Many studies show that pets help people with mental health problems. Depressed people really do benefit from a dog who loves them. Anxious people really do feel calmer when they hold a cute kitten.

Legally, it's a racket.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-emotional-support-animal-racket