When you go to GiveWell's Donate page, one of the questions is,

How should we use your gift? We may use unrestricted gifts to support our operations or to make grants, at our discretion:

And you can choose the options:

• Grants to recommended charities

• Unrestricted donation

I notice I'm reluctant to pick "Unrestricted," fearing my donation might be "wasted" on GiveWell's operations, instead of going right to the charity. But that seems kind of strange. Choosing "Unrestricted" gives GiveWell strictly more options than choosing "Grants to recommended charities" because "Unrestricted" allows them to use the money either for their own operations, or just send it to the charities anyway. So as long as I trust GiveWell's decision-making process, "Unrestricted" is the best choice. And I presumably do trust GiveWell's decision-making, since I'm giving away some money based on their say-so. But I'm nevertheless inclined to hit "Grants to recommended charities," despite, like, mathematical proof that that's not the best option.

Can we talk about this a little? How can I get less confused?

This is a good article making a valuable point. But this —

Temperature is sometimes taught as, "a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles," because for an ideal gas U/N = (3/2) kBT. This is wrong, for the same reason that the ideal gas entropy isn't the definition of entropy.

— is a confusing way to speak. There is such a thing as "the average kinetic energy of the particles", and one measure of this thing is called "temperature" in some contexts. There is nothing wrong with this as long as you are clear about what context you are in.

If you fall into the sun, your atoms will be strewn far and wide, and it won't be because of something "in the mind". There is a long and perfectly valid convention of calling the relevant feature of the sun its "temperature".

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson, the author of Red/Blue/Green Mars (which I did not read).

The protagonist, Swan Er Hong, is probably the single most annoying character in recent memory, more so even than Catelyn Stark of GoT (in the books, not the show). Despite being 130 odd years old, she is mostly driven by impulses fitting for a 13 year-old. She is also bossy, short-tempered and not very smart. Whether this is intentional is not clear to me, probably not. Fitz Wahram, a diplomat, who is much more reasonable, is under her spell and often goes out of his comfort zone for her, with considerable risk to his life and health.

This book is a rare case where I wish for the main character to bite the dust already.

Oh, and the long scientific ruminations by the author, judging by the parts close my area of expertise, physics and quantum computers, are total rubbish.

I put down the book when it describes Swan's more stupid antics, and pick it up again when I have nothing else to read.

Following the Phoenix is an absolutely excellent "single-/dual-point-of-departure spinoff" from HPMOR, starting from HPMOR's Chapter 81.

I have found it very good reading; it really feels very original-flavor, as if it's what Eliezer could have potentially chosen to write instead of the path he chose to take.

When you get to a fork in the road, take it.

• Yogi Berra, on Harder choices matter less

(I will keep doing this. I have no shame.)

Nonfiction Books Thread

Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours.

Yogi Berra, on Timeless Decision Theory.

Why is it easier to keep from eating M&M's "on your own" and leverage that ability to motivate you to do work, than it is to keep doing work "on your own" in the first place?

I'm assuming because "don't eat undeserved M&Ms" is a clear, simple and binary rule - breaches are obvious, so there's not much of a temptation to rationalize them. "Work on my stuff" is broad and fuzzy and has plenty of room for excuses like "I'm a bit tired today", "I deserve to rest", "I'll do it tomorrow', etc.

Can I ask a silly question? My understanding of your situation is that you want to get your work done, but sometimes you don't have the willpower, so you use your M&M system for motivation. But then you are faced with the possibility of just eating a bunch of M&M's without doing anything. And there is no meta-M&M system to motivate you to keep from eating M&M's. So I don't see how this can actually help you. Empirically, it clearly does, but I have trouble understanding how. Why is it easier to keep from eating M&M's "on your own" and leverage that ability to motivate you to do work, than it is to keep doing work "on your own" in the first place?

If I have just ruined the effect, I sincerely apologize...

Possibly orthogonal to this discussion but possibly also useful information for future discussions: There seems to be an assertion that one group of sapients should or will necessarily accept arbitrary moral assertions made by another group of sapients*. This is so farfetched as to be incredibly distracting.

* never mind getting the members of the second group to accept the arbitrary moral assertion.