Selection effects in media become increasingly strong as populations and media increase, meaning that rare datapoints driven by unusual processes such as the mentally ill or hoaxers are increasingly unreliable as evidence of anything at all and must be ignored. At scale, anything that can happen will happen a small but nonzero times.
You may have heard that there’s a shoplifting surge hitting San Francisco. Criminals are running wild, and thanks to bleeding-heart progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin, there are no consequences for a
Some people argue that shoplifters in San Francisco are running rampant. I don’t think this is true. Instead of a proper introduction, let’s just refute with the strongest arguments off the bat. Argum
You can discuss this post on the forum. Also see Most Important Slate Star Codex Posts. This is a collection of Gwern’s most important writing that comprises 4 essays 5 tweets 1 obscure note on his site 1 list 1 special edition of his newsletter 1 reddit comment 4 book reviews Plus, 2 reddit comments written in response to Gwern 2 PDFs on his site a few more important but not essential essays and book reviews My selection is quite opinionated and if you publish your own I might link …