Assorted links
Links to interesting things online
Sometimes I see people on the internet and think they're cool. Often I wish that I could see the kinds of blogs that they read, the information they consume. I wonder what they have done — read, built, practiced — to become the person that they are. If they have similar taste to me, it seems likely that I'll like many things that they like, and I like finding new things that I like.
You can think of this page as essentially the aesthetics page, just specifically for links I guess (except not entirely — read the disclaimer below please)
I've learned from experience that imitation is of limited utility in terms of "doing things that help me achieve my goals" — once you are exposed to "things you can do," it's typically better to create your own path, your own systems, instead of
How to use this page: however you use it is fine I guess (assuming you're not, like, using it to harm someone somehow) but my intended use here is for the reader to just look at a couple things at a time. The links won't go away; my hope is that you'll take it slow and get more value from each.
Disclaimer: Linking to things here does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the link's content (and certainly not, say, all of the link's author's views or all of the content on the website I linked to!) for various technical reasons — for example, websites may change hands, link rot may occur, content may simply change — as well as important philosophical reasons: some very smart people can be very wrong about some things and very correct about other things. I try to engage with valuable ideas and information, regardless of whether they are challenges to views I hold, or if they fit in with ideas I believe.
Sometimes ideas or information will come from sources (authors, groups of people, websites, etc. etc.) who might be very wrong about other things, e.g. a physicist who has terrible ideas about public policy might still make hugely significant discovery in the field; hence, within reason, I am okay with separating the idea from the person propounding it — though it certainly does not mean that I will never take their ideas with a grain of salt (or perhaps the whole salt shaker) if their other views are reprehensible or based on flawed principles, and I of course will do my best to take the context in which an idea is expressed into account when it is important to do so. Interesting does not necessarily mean true.
In general, the above disclaimer is basically a request for good-faith engagement.
Now — in no particular order...
FABRIC, Rationalism, and ACX; or, "rats and co"
I'm starting the links off with "things that I would show to my younger self" since giving info about rationalism and associated groups to someone who is somewhat similar to younger me would be potentially one of the highest positive-value outcomes of someone seeing this page.
Rationalism is basically about "how to think more effectively about the world," and so it draws lots of people who are interested in cool topics; intellectual motivation seems correlated with desire to think better, which makes sense.
Oblicatory disclaimer: it seems like in the communities I'm in, rationalism and adjacent groups are kind of out of style — some people identify as post-rationalists because they think that rationalism's emphasis on logic is too limiting; some argue that rationalism, EA, etc. are net harmful. Every movement has its limitations; as always, engage with a grain of salt, and, as with being a part of any online community, pay attention and use good judgement.
Regardless, it stands anecdotally that people that I've met in rationalist circles (particularly FABRIC camps and associated alumni groups, see below) have been the first groups of people my age (and people in general) around which I felt at home. Younger me discovering the link to the FABRIC application on the LessWrong website was an extremely positively-consequential event; it's a gathering point for interesting people, and so my number of cool friends subsequently exploded after attending.
- FABRIC programs and SPARC (Also known as "rat camps"): free (w/ travel scholarships available) summer programs for intellectually motivated teenagers, with a rationalist bent.
- SPARC is in the US and is mathier, from what I've heard; ESPR, ASPR and WARP are generally rationality-focused (i.e. "how to think better about things" with various other cool, hard to explain things; plenty of philosophy) and PAIR is partly AI-focused.
- I attended PAIR in 2023 and I'm a staff member at the same for 2024. Attending PAIR made my life significantly better; I regard it as ~the best week of my life.
- Other similar programs, scholarships, grants, etc: HS Opportunities Board. I've heard Emergent Ventures is awesome, can't really attest to anything else (but it's all probably pretty cool)
- LessWrong: The original hub for rationalism. A forum and community about rationality/epistemology, AI, science, and various other related topics (e.g. game theory, and occasionally politics).
- LessWrong hosts a wiki and a number of essay series about thinking better ("the sequences" and various other posts) in addition to the forum.
- Likely the first place I felt at home on the internet.
- List of associated blogs (LessWrong); outside source (maybe redundant): List of blogs in the LessWrong Diaspora
- Astral Codex Ten: A well-known blog written by Scott Alexander, with a lively comments section — often closely tied to the LessWrong community.
- By trade Scott is a psychiatrist, so he has background in pharmaceuticals and data science, but he's a talented and erudite writer on top of his technical expertise.
- The blog is about... rationality, AI, science, but also literature, therapy, culture, and various other assorted interesting things. I can't really do it justice.
- ACX also has community meetups, which vary in quality from "downright amazing" to "ehh, kinda weird I guess."
- There are also various rat-adjacent communities on Twitter and Discord
AI-related stuff
- Situational Awareness: A document by a former OpenAI Superalignment researcher forecasting the future of AI in the next 5-10 years.
- Convinced me that superintelligence is reasonably possible, and that AGI is plausibly ahead on the current path of innovation in AI.
- It's quite long, though, so Zvi Mowshowitz compiled a shorter highlights version of it; I read it, and I think it's worth reading, even if you're not technical in AI.
- I don't really have any significant criticism of the work on hand unfortunately, let me know if you do. I mostly agree with the takes.
- Andrej Karpathy — Neural Networks, Zero to Hero series: building up to ~modern AI techniques from ~scratch.
- Probably you should have enough math and CS background before jumping in, but this is what I'd recommend for learning how to actually build AI (if video format works for you.)
- For the aforementioned math and CS background, you can just teach yourself most of the important stuff. See Neel Nanda's "Barebones Guide to Mechanistic Interpretability Prerequisites."
- This list is oriented at Mech Interp but serves as a good basis for AI in general.
- Speaking from positive experience with it, and also Neel Nanda is a very competent person.
Literature
- J.L. Borges: selected study resources
- Jorge Luis Borges was a genius short story writer, and is one of my favorite authors.
- A friend called him "the smartest man in the world."
- The autodidact project seems cool in general.
- An overview of Finnegans Wake from Robot Wisdom (archive.org link because the blog is no longer available) Finnegans wake help list; FWEET.
- A friend described Finnegans Wake as "the greatest work ever written in the english language" and said it was the book he'd choose if he could only read one book for the rest of his life.
- Hint: It's impenetrable unless you listen to it read aloud as you read along, and even then it's still incredibly difficult reading. (One day I hope to write about Finnegans Wake like I have the Tractatus.)
- A generalist librarian's website.
Miscellaneous
- Wikipedia's External Links sections on pages about cool thingsand Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines (for an example of how cool Wikipedia's outlines are, see e.g. Outline of AI)
- Quantum Country: An introduction to quantum computing, in a "mnemonic medium" incorporating spaced repetition into the information for significantly better retention.
- Augmenting Long-term Memory: a well-known introduction to actually using spaced repetition systems.
- Search terms: "webrings"