If you put out a birdbath
You’ll see such lovely birds
For birds and other creatures
Will come in flocks and herds

If you put out no birdbath
It might not be as nice
You’ll have no birds but also
No birdshit and no mice

Some men are born to only make them
Some fewer born to try and slake them
It is a world of problems – still
Some men are born to live their will

In spite of what you were thinking
In spite of what you were told
It just is not the case that
Oppression leads to revolt

The horizon provides
As much of a view
As ever it will demand

Our mortal eyes
The light, the time
These are not always at hand

I read Yudkowsky 2005 – 2015 or so. One thing I like about him is he wrote about one thing (AI risks) so much and so convincingly that he became the go-to guy for that one thing. Then donors gave him over $10M. I also go on about just a few things at great length, but so far no millions.

Robin Hanson is an economics teacher in higher education. He was blogging online. He liked his student Yudkowsky and they blogged at the same place, Overcoming Bias, many real good posts there. Then Yudkowsky started Less Wrong, many real good posts there. Then Yudkowsky kept going into just AI risk and having $10M+ work. Scott Alexander was writing at Less Wrong and he branched off to write Slate Star Codex, many real good posts there. I met Scott briefly once, the absolute no-contest smartest person I’ve ever shaken hands with. NYT doxxed Alexander, he paused and started over writing at Astral Codex Ten. Then Alexander invited a bunch of other writers to blog there. This is about 1/5th of a century of reading for me, much I’m glad for, eventually too much even if much of it was real good and I paused all of it. Switched from thinking about now and future to reading and thinking about history.

Less Wrong had a sub-topic of “effective altruism.” What altruistic efforts have concrete effects, which don’t, which are hard to say? One thing that came out of that was an essay claiming that mosquito netting saves and improves the most human lives for the least amount money. That’s a modest claim and maybe true and no harm done. “Effective altruism” then turned into a few other things, some of them not to my preference. I was there for the mosquito-net discussions of effective altruism, was gone by the time it turned into a few other things. If you’ve heard derisive talk of “tech-bros” that’s one of the things it turned into.

Roko Mijic wrote at Less Wrong that it was inevitable that a super-duper computer Ai would exist in the future, one so strong that it could reach into the past. That AI would now be punishing all those who delayed it coming into existence. Yudkowsky thought this was such a dangerous idea that he deleted that essay and forbade any further discussion of such a “memetic hazard.” Roko said dude I was just kind of writing a little story. Yudkowsky stuck by the ban on “Roko’s basalisk.” By describing it here I’ve doomed you guys to be tortured by a super-duper computer Ai that will exist in the future. Sorry.

Roko had his own objections to AI research happening without strict safety concerns and wrote about it for a long time. Then… he changed his mind. Now he says eh, AI is here or coming soon, it’ll be a mixed bag but generally a good thing.

That circle of blogs (Overcoming Bias, Less Wrong, Slate Star Codex, etc.) happens to be and / or caused to be where the Zizians met each other, and formed their ideas, ideas which led to actions, actions which lead to deaths. Another offshoot of “effective altruism” sad to say.

One guy: “we should pool some money together and buy mosquito nets to give to strangers.” Another guy: “ah, by that you mean I should change sex and kill people? ON IT!”