Ben Mann Monthly Dec 2020: rain, communism, AI alignment, movies about purpose, long distance
Purpose
An index for my memory
A menu of topics for my next conversation with you
A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it
A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable
Experiments and experiences
💞 Long distance
Diana went home to Canada for a month. Since the border is closed to foreigners, I couldn't follow. This was the easiest long-distance relationship I've done so far. We made sure to call almost every day, even if it was short. Due to quarantine, for most of the month I lived truly alone. I couldn't easily visit friends except for short distance walks. I had a lot of phone calls, so it didn't feel that lonely, but I reduced the effort I put into food by 90%. I was mostly vegetarian since it requires less cooking.☔️ Rain walk
I spent a week in Grass Valley, CA with some friends. One of the days it was raining, but I convinced ~6 people to come on a hike anyway. There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. We had a great time checking out the abandoned mines. The rain turned an ordinary hike into an adventure.
Life updates
Won best paper award at NeurIPS 🎊
Quit OpenAI to join new stealth co 🚀
Pulled an intercostal muscle after doing a clutch flag one too many times. ~2w to heal. 🤕
Started reading Diaspora 👾, Xi Jinping: The Backlash ☭, and a computer architecture textbook 📚
Switched from sertraline to fluoxetine to reduce brain fog 🧠
Content
5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted
The Party 5/5
Eye opening view of how Chinese-flavored communism survived and flourished where all others failed.
The Organization Department has the ability to hire and fire every role in the country.
Until Xi Jinping, what would be considered corruption in the US greased the wheels of capitalism for underpaid public officials.
Bureaucrats are rotated around the country to test their mettle before serving in Beijing.
State censorship is set up to force journalists to self-censor. Either you self censor, or you get blocked entirely.
In modern China it's more common to be stripped of rank/position/money and lambasted in the media than to be silently locked up.
The state refers to Soviet Russia as "centrally planned economy" etc rather than communist to distance itself from bad branding.
Clear, well written survey of the field of AI safety
Compelling and cogent exposition that doesn't sacrifice technical precision
Fascinating look at the historical interplay between neuroscience, developmental psychology, and machine learning
While we'll need to solve the alignment problem for AGI, there are plenty of instances with narrow AI and even human relationships that make it worth trying to solve as soon as possible. These systems are already hiring, jailing, and investing in people. Let's make sure they do it according to our ethics.
Perfectly captures how it feels to create something personal and new: inspiration, suffering, doubt, and finally catharsis.
The first thing you make is always horrible and rough, but it's the necessary first step that lets you polish
Show, don't tell
Soul 4/5
A return to form for Pixar, which has languished in sequel hell for too long
A jazz pianist dies just before getting his dream gig. With the help of a soul he's supposed to be mentoring, he realizes how little of his life he had really lived.
"I heard this story about a fish, he swims up to an older fish and says: 'I'm trying to find this thing they call the ocean.' 'The ocean?' the older fish says, 'that's what you're in right now.' 'This', says the young fish, 'this is water. What I want is the ocean!'"
Ford v Ferrari 4/5
Suprisingly riveting take on two mens' attempt to upend 1960s car racing
Classic tropes: engineering montage, struggling against big co design by committee, thinking outside the box by replacing the entire brake system, seeing daddy trade his life for passion
Heart pounding cinematography of the races, showing the human personalities behind the wheel: how much do you trust your engineering; how much risk will you take?
The Good Place 3/5
Premise: there actually is a heaven and hell, but the demons aren't that good at torture and the angels are choked by bureaucracy. One demon tries to innovate on torture methods but the humans keep learning after 800 resets
Fun, engaging exploration of what it means for someone to be "good", how that can change over time, the importance of good influences
Binged the entire series in 2w