Nevin

A couple pounds of goopy neural tissue, some glucose consumed, some modern medicine, a smartphone, and a global internet.
Autodidact with various obsessions.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

I had an impulse in this thread to actually state what I'm here on Twitter for.
It's not everything, but it's a good explanation of why I tweet the way I do.
I'll probably pin this tweet & make a thread out of my personal favorites from my account history.
https://t.co/jAkA67snAd

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@johncarlosbaez I don't care if my followers look like a rounding error relative to some. There are some people who's ideas I don't find boring. I don't mind when I do the thing I find stimulating for little recognition, & then occasionally my name crosses the feed of the people I respect.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

https://t.co/9Uc7hHWlpL
Why does anyone think this is going to happen if we're still heavily subsidizing corn for ethanol production instead of just buying sugarcane ethanol from South America?
We don't care about efficiency or the environment. We care about the grift.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@ericweinstein @ESYudkowsky I have said similar in your replies before, and I can't tell if I should dislike myself for being one-note. I just really want to see that podcast.
I enjoyed his episode on Making Sense, but - not for nothing - I think I'd prefer you taking the conversation through the portal.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@ericweinstein In your sit down with Bret you claimed talking about process in science was a symptom of aimlessness.
You could benefit from exploring the heterodox prescription for the stagnation in science.
@ESYudkowsky might have much to say about what in method we should throw out & reform.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@BretWeinstein Have you seen this yet? Looks like Jodi Shaw and Smith College could use some help, conditional on what involvement would be wise.
https://t.co/d6JEWw2IbP
I'm having flashbacks to the Evergreen debacle.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

Looks like Trump is going to be the winner for election day results, but mail-ins will keep it in question. I'm seeing -550 (~85% in favor of Trump) for live betting odds.
This is going to be a contentious next few days. I'm interested to see what will happen in DC.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@ericweinstein "No, stop saying asteroid mining. No fucking space stations. And no trains in the tunnels, it's Tesla or we fill them back in."

[Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ @ESYudkowsky]

If it gets bad in the winter, think of it this way: We had a limited time in the summer to rapidly test vaccines using the many many volunteers for human challenge trials, and we squandered it, but at least some counterfactual worlds out there are doing great!

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

In the case of atrazine and the likelihood of high species-independent reproductive/endocrine toxicity at EXTREMELY LOW levels, scientific journals should LOUDLY & EXPLICITLY support what information uses any available data, as long as it was recorded well & faithfully.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

Orginal doc: https://t.co/moAAaylkyZ
Follow-up interview: https://t.co/Hmg69jOdAm
This story is a concrete example of why we need good scientists to loudly protest in favor of the fundamentals of truth-seeking instead of defending institutional scientific dogma.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

Lobbyists and others in power should not be able ignore what science is: a project for expanding available and reliable causal knowledge by effective use of *any* available evidence.
You cannot religiously canonize a methodology consistently and egregiously failing to do this.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ @ESYudkowsky]

I can't help but be bemused that the skies turned red as blood AND the world is ending, but these two facts are almost entirely unrelated except insofar as training large AI models produces some amount of global warming

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

https://t.co/MYFB9TquUC
“It explains almost everything. It explains why people are so pissed off. It explains why they are so economically precarious.”
Newsflash: Bernie was right all along. Shocking to only the most indoctrinated and misguided.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

#LegalizeLessShittyDrugs

[ExiledInfoHaz @ExiledInfoHaz]

Most people would not drink a glass of acetone mixed with fruit juice - it sounds like an attempt to commit suicide or poison someone.

Yet, in terms of chemistry it's not that different to drinking a vodka and orange juice.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@robertskmiles @robinhanson It's hard to appreciate the 'Western Canon' if you don't accept the God character chuckling when Nosferatu opens the jugular of some unsuspecting bride, or when the Devil points a claw at fine print and a vagabond suddenly regrets their crossroads bargaining.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

This country is not going to return to being a "global leader" just by electing Biden and being woke. Imperialism and globalism for elite coffers has crippled our country. We are destined to fall behind and flounder in one distaster and tragedy after another. We're losing, badly.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

Social/industrial programs for domestic growth and cohesion are the best way forward. The Green New Deal is a good idea. Connect American towns and cities with trains.
Simultaneously, demilitarize police. Legalize public norms, like drugs.
Systemic change now or the US is doomed.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

Yikes. Hope for common origin with earth life. Hope for nothing multi-cellular. If we find something like a mitochondria but not, we can basically wrap up this Earth-party and wait for the long cold night.

[Eli Dourado @elidourado]

Leaked Venus/phosphine video https://t.co/m2Q806SEWl

My take: Dozens of organic molecules, including amino acids and simple sugars, have been detected in *interstellar space*. That suggests there is life pretty much everywhere in the universe that can support some version of it.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@robinhanson It's interesting to me in the sense being located in America is a decreasingly advantageous position. Remote work makes it easy to stay in America until you have connections & a career, then move somewhere with no US govt/society, and your wealth has higher leverage.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@ericweinstein just sat in on a discord call, couldn't formulate anything concise to interject, but I had a lot of thoughts.
Primarily, you need to talk to @ESYudkowsky about your hypothesis. Ask him to come on the show and request, in the positive sense, a sanity check on GU.

[Nevin @NevinWetherill]

@ESYudkowsky How I felt after HPMOR