Spring links

1. The serendipity machine: Nabeel’s notes on using Twitter.

2. Great use of LLMs by Jason Benn: “help you estimate which attendee can best meet every other attendee's goals. Twenty thousand intelligent judgments, and it costs about $20.”

3. Guy uses spaced-repetition software Anki so much that he hallucinates Anki cards when he closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep.

4. “When I was younger, they’d say we’re the lucky country. It’s not like that now.” Natasha Frost on Australia’s woes.

5. LLMs are strangely shaped tools by Near Cyan.

6. You better not be a crab in a moist crack when I get there.

7. Photos that look like paintings.

8. Why birds are smart.

9. How to develop tests for consciousness in humans and beyond: “We suggest that a promising strategy is to focus on non-trivial human cases (infants, fetuses, disorders of consciousness) and then progress toward nonhuman systems (animals, artificial intelligence, neural organoids).”

10. Dynomite’s list of things that don’t work. Includes: acupuncture, AI methods that don’t leverage computation, and thinking about your life like a movie.

11. Nico Delon on why Mozart is literally the greatest.

12. And in a great crossover event between two friends of the blog, Nico reflects on Cate Hall’s advice on being more agentic.

13. Strong evidence for lookism in favor of blond women.

14. Excerpt from Peter Singer’s new book about Buddhism and ethics. (Related and previously linked, Calvin Baker’s excellent essay on Buddhism and utilitarianism.)

15. Elliot Thornley keeps up his (successful, in my view) war on person-affecting views in population ethics.

16. Richard Yetter-Chappel on “philosophical myths”. I don’t think most of these are obviously myths—they just seem like disputed theses.

17. Both Sides Brigade pro meditation: “Don't let the weird and somewhat cringe-y culture surrounding meditation turn you off!”