Favored Prisoner

Maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favored by the gods.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@RyanSAdams @TrustlessState Unit of account seems pretty unlikely, but SoV for sure, MoE very likely.

ETH is a better SoV than BTC because:
1. It's native to Ethereum (home of the digital economy)
2. Better path to privacy than BTC
3. It's more secure than BTC

"ETH is digital gold" is the narrative.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@Neubs15 @Bankless @TrustlessState @RyanSAdams The revenue narrative was always either a psyop by people trying to pump alt-L1s, or a confusion by finance people who don't understand stores of value.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@AdrianoFeria Related:

Ethereum people keep trying to figure out some way to pitch ETH that cedes "digital gold" to Bitcoin.

See the failed "digital oil" marketing pitch. It doesn't make sense when scrutinized.

We should have the confidence to say the truth: ETH is the best digital gold.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@AdrianoFeria Great essay.

One aspect that I'd like to see talked about more is privacy and how important it is for digital gold / money. I think Ethereum has a much better path to strong privacy with a good UX than Bitcoin does, which should give it a another big edge in this contest.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@jon_charb They're betting on it eventually winning as digital gold, which seems plausible because it has a better privacy and security / censorship resistance story than Bitcoin.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@UNVRSL_EXPLNR @DavidDeutschOxf @djgish @KentOveValo @wtgowers To me it seems like proofs are basically explanations of why something is true. Maybe not all proofs, but a lot of them.

Like if someone wonders why there are an infinite number of prime numbers, the proof gives an explanation for why.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@ryanberckmans I think it’s concerning that according to you *everything* is amazing — every new departure just confirms that we’re on the right track.

For real events like this, the reality is at least a little mixed.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@ryanberckmans A couple more high profile EF people just left. Do you still think this is good?

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@ryanberckmans So you’re suggesting that Barnaby left because he didn’t want to prioritize the same values as the EF?

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@gambarian @RobotsWon @EigenGender Persuading or hiring people to do so. Or sending drones or robots to destroy the system.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@RobotsWon @EigenGender @gambarian The first AI to become powerful enough to do so might 'lock down' the development of other ASIs because it's aware of this dynamic. In that case the preferences of this first powerful AI will be what determines the future.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@Noahpinion @RyanPGreenblatt The orthogonality thesis is a straightforward consequence of the is/ought gap.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@sgoldfed To those complaining:

The reason you shouldn’t be worried is that every action like this is inherently public, and users have a choice of which chains to use. So they have a strong incentive maintain a policy of only doing this in extreme cases.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@deanwball @allTheYud Seems a bit antisocial for you to be so coy about the argument for why Yud-style rationalists are actually similar to the older "rationalists". You can't expect people to read a full book based on what you've said so far.

Can you summarize the similarity in a few paragraphs?

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@Plinz rationalists tend to understand the is/ought distinction and realize that both intelligence and wisdom don’t come with any implicit “oughts”.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@TaylorPearsonMe Cool. Do you mind sharing this skill so others can use it?

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@strikerglows @tszzl They were very early on both crypto and covid. Hal Finney and Vitalik and Wei Dai and Arthur Brietman are all lesswrongers, among others.

On AI, look how influential AI xrisk concerns have gotten. At the very least they were early on treating it as the most important thing.

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@strikerglows @tszzl crypto, covid, AI

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@johnennis How do you see them evolving without online learning? You think being able to alter their context and leave their weights unchanged is enough?

[Favored Prisoner @favoredprisoner]

@mbateman If we’re getting AGI in a few years like Dario believes, then initiatives like this don’t really matter on the object level.

The real purpose is likely for Anthropic to ingratiate itself to the left so that they don’t get regulated too hard before they achieve AGI.