Russian online meetups
Due to COVID-19 all Russian meetups are online now. Shedules of some groups can be found in Russian LW Wiki (in Russian). Schedule of Kocherga club: https://kocherga-club.ru/events (in Russian).
Jun 21, 20205
Alaric
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In Russian word "taboo" was introduced too. Problem was with a term "taboo tradeoff" as a whole. We had thought that a literal translation may produce wrong connotation or no connotation.
In Russian we have many adopted words too, but, yes, it is more difficult due to declinations and conjugations.
Whether it's a calque or a descriptive expression, I think the main problem is still that it addresses only one term. You encounter a term that has no good translation, invent your own translation, start using it and maybe it'll eventually catch on. But then you have to do the entire dance again for the next term.
Yes, I agree.
Consider the use of Latin phrases in Europe in XIX. century. It was, back then, seen as beautiful, literary and high-status. If the same could be achieved today with English, it would allow small language communities to break out of the language cage.
I think it depends on education in the community. Yes, for example,... (read more)
I think I can understand the problem.
I have translated HPMoR and some Lesswrong's post into Russian. And sometimes I was discovering an absence of Russian translations for some terms (especially in psychology). Often it was hard to find some "less wrong" words.
For example, one arc in HPMoR is titled "Taboo tradeoffs". And we (our translation team) asked some people who studied psychology, but no one had known Russian analogue for this term. In the end we gave up and changed the title. (Russian version can be translated into English as "Price of priceless things".)
In fiction sometimes you can change a sentence to translate its meaning without using a particular word. (Sometimes it... (read more)
About Peskov.
Now Peskov is actively being criticized by "war party" in Russia. But their media mostly is afraid to criticize Putin, and they are just shouting about traitors and saying: "Why Putin doesn't fire him?".
However, Russian ultraconservators have explained all problems in Russia by some traitors in Kremlin very often. Some of Putin's ministers were actively criticized for many years. And Putin ignore that usually.
On the other hand, one day Putin said something like: "My press secretary have said nonsense very often".
I was wrong about IT specialists and drafts. Already there is government decree about it.
For a draft exemption you must:
And these rules apply to the current draft.
I think a success story of the right prediction is a good point. But it is not sufficient in the long run. For a decision to trust some source of predictions we need more information than one success.
As far as I can see, Metaculus track record on geopolitics is looking good, but it contains relatively few points.
And for governments we don't see their track records. But I think it will not be hard to find wrong predictions from governments in the past.
March 27: Russian parliament introduces bill to make all who speak Russian ‘Russian citizens residing abroad.’ Speculation is that this is to justify future interventions, could also be a way to attract good people. Interesting thought experiment what would happen if we did the same for everyone who speaks English.
It is a wrong reading of the bill. (In Russia very many media described it incorrectly.) Really, the author of the bill has tried to decrease the number of people who can be treated as "compatriot". The current revision of the Russian law about compatriots doesn't expect that compatriots are oblige to know Russian. And one of the MPs decided to "fix" it.
... (read more)With
I can add that Kremlin is using it in their propaganda. Previous years many Kremlin supporters said: "The West cannot make against us anything significant because they depends on our oil and gas and they want to get money from us selling some goods to us". And now some people say something like that: "Ok, they imposed some sanctions, but they cannot impose really heavy sanctions".
I mean that some agents can abuse a situation with many mutual dependencies like that.
Russian army has very many non-battle units. For example, Logistical Support. This units have own generals too.
Even military band conductor can be a general in Russia.
Due to COVID-19 all Russian meetups are online now. Shedules of some groups can be found in Russian LW Wiki (in Russian).
Schedule of Kocherga club: https://kocherga-club.ru/events (in Russian).
Maybe you can find a freelance job? For example, people who can do alignment research usually know how to write code. Or maybe you could give private lessons (math or computer science)?
Yes, you should spend time on this, but I think it could make your situation more stable than donations.