AlanXun — LessWrong

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AlanXun — LessWrong

Replying toThe LessWrong 2018 Book is Available for Pre-order

AlanXun5y

The LessWrong 2018 Book is Available for Pre-order

The design looks great. Some questions

What software did you use to make the book? (I'm guessing some variant of LaTeX.)
What inspired this project?
Are there any plans to produce further volumes like these in future? And has anything like this been published previously (apart from Yudkowsky's Rationality book)?
Do you plan to publish a "Best of the Best" collection - all-time bests, rather than best of that year? (I expect such a collection would exclude the Yudkowsky essays already published in his book.)

Replying toWhat Would Advanced Social Technology Look Like?

AlanXun5y

What Would Advanced Social Technology Look Like?

Real Social Engineering. That's already been happening! Foucault describes the development from sovereign power to disciplinary power to governmentality. I expect the trend to continue.

Replying toHow I Write

AlanXun5y

How I Write

These are very helpful points. It's always interesting to see people's inner processes. Thanks for writing it!

Replying toSome quick notes on hand hygiene

AlanXun6y

Some quick notes on hand hygiene

Do you have a link to the post?

Replying toSteelmanning Divination

AlanXun6y*

Steelmanning Divination

Thank you for your generous response. Upon rereading my comment, parts of it sounded overly strident and accusatory, and I retract the tone of my comment. I was overly critical and didn't mention the good parts of your post. I've edited it slightly to downplay those and have added portions to emphasise that your post is an overall good for LessWrong. There's not enough discussion of these things, and I hope that my earlier post makes it clearer that I think your contribution is valuable.

I'd welcome anything further on these that you write here, especially the possible posts on Xunzi and Mozi! I hope my comments haven't discouraged you. I'd like... (read 704 more words →)

Replying toSteelmanning Divination

AlanXun6y*

Steelmanning Divination

This post makes the best case I’ve seen for a steelmanned version of divination. Unfortunately, many of its substantive points are also either wrong or misleading. I’ll start small, by giving the least serious misleading statement. Then I’ll point out two wrong statements along with one extremely misleading statement, and end with why this all matters.

Vaniver's post is good and LW is better for having it. This is intended as a discussion of how it could be made better, and the criticism here should not distract you from how useful the post is.

The smallest misleading statement

Let’s start with the smallest misleading statement. Vaniver gives the throwaway remark early on that he and... (read 1312 more words →)

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