7 captures, most recent first.
anansi ☀ @s0ulDirect0r — Jul 25
i have gotten so much mileage out of the "i notice i am confused" move Harry uses in HPMOR when i'm doing math problems. i get stuck, i notice my confusion, i state that to myself, then i just start it over and i find the answer. i love that shit.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Plain text tweet, no images.
rationalityhpmorproblem-solvingtwitterepistemics
[Commentary text above the quoted tweet, unclear author since header is scrolled off-screen]
This passage from Yudkowsky addresses the main oversight in the way he's previously talked about bayesianism. Not sure if he's changed his mind or else is just making his views more explicit, but good to see either way.
[Quoted tweet, screenshotted as an image within the tweet]
"Very often in Science, especially when you're working in a confused 'pre-paradigmatic' field, 98% of the work is in coming up with the right hypothesis to test. That's often more important than the elaborate Law of Probability about how to interpret results that are less than totally clear. We study that part because it has clearer Law to study and it helps reshape our thoughts, not because it's the most important or difficult part of the problem."
"And of that work of coming up with the right hypothesis to test, again, often the most difficult part is seeing the rule you were taking completely for granted - not a rule you explicitly believed, just a way you behaved automatically without being able to see that and so question it. As soon as you see the implicit rule, you can imagine it being false, but only once you see it."
"The difficult thing, in most pre-paradigmatic and confused problems at the beginning of some Science, is not coming up with the right complicated long sentence in a language you already know. It's breaking out of the language in which every hypothesis you can write is false."
1:59 AM · Mar 26, 2022
[reply icon] 10 [retweet icon] 7 [heart icon] 126 [bookmark icon] 26 [share icon]
Relevant ⌄
Eliezer Yudko... ✓ @ESYu... · Mar 26, 2022
Just making it explicit
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A tweet (author's own handle cut off at top of screenshot) quoting/screenshotting an older Yudkowsky thread about pre-paradigmatic science and hypothesis generation, with Yudkowsky's own reply "Just making it explicit" visible below the engagement counts.
epistemicsyudkowskyphilosophy of sciencerationality
Ben Landau-Tay... ✓ @benlandautay... · 5h
When you argue and change someone's mind, usually they don't realize in the middle of your debate. More often their view shifts after they have a chance to sleep on it. You're not gonna hear "Oh God you're right", but two months later you'll hear them repeating your points.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A short observation about persuasion and belief change happening with delay rather than in the moment of argument. General epistemics content, not tied to AI or project-specific threads.
persuasionepistemicsrationalitytwitter
Andy Masley ✓ @AndyMasley
More seriously I think basically no one should ever be negatively polarized
[Embedded text image, "Getting negatively polarized"]:
It's become too common to hear people talk with pride about how they got negatively polarized into believing something.
- "The left went crazy and drove me to the far right!"
- "I used to be a normal liberal but other liberals were so annoying that I'm a communist now!"
This is mental weakness.
It's embarrassing to let people negatively polarize you. You're an adult. Stop it. Negative polarization means your brain got hacked by individual annoying strangers. That's ridiculous.
When I hear someone say "I once met a very annoying person who believed X and now I hate X as a result" my only thought is that the world has 8 billion individuals in it, each one an infinite story we can just barely begin to understand in our brief time here. This person I'm talking to has let that precious truth slip from their field of vision.
Getting negatively polarized is often a sign that the person enjoys having problems. They like the idea of having someone annoying who is causing them problems and turning them evil. It feels like they're deriving some sublimated joy from the people who annoyed them. The annoying person has given them an exciting narrative where they get to enjoy being the victim. It should be low-status to enjoy having problems like this.
9:35 AM · Dec 9, 2025 · 13.7K Views
3 replies, 16 reposts, 105 likes, 14 bookmarks
Cody Fenwick ✓ @codytfenwick · 4h
I think I can steelman negative polarization.
It is often a major error, but if a particular group makes a bunch of correlated errors and has bad epistemic norms, it's reasonable to generally lower your credence on views that are distinctive to them.
3 replies, 9 likes, 380 views
Andy Masley ✓ @AndyMasley · 4h
Yup that makes sense, I should clarify [cut off]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A political-psychology essay/thread arguing against "negative polarization" (letting annoying members of a group turn you against that group's whole position), with a thoughtful counterargument from Cody Fenwick about legitimate Bayesian updating on group epistemic norms. General epistemics/rationality content, tangential to the project's core AI threads but relevant to Nathan's broader epistemic-hygiene interests.
epistemicspolitical psychologyrationalitypolarizationtwitter
Joscha Bach @Plinz · 10h:
"Both rationalists and ideologues are prone to miss the persistent difference between what the arguments say and how reality plays out. Inference is brittle, ideology distorts."
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A short epistemics aphorism from cognitive scientist Joscha Bach about the gap between argument and reality. General epistemic-hygiene content, loosely relevant to the project's epistemic-protocol themes (verify claims externally, don't over-trust confident inference) but not AI-specific.
twitterjoscha-bachepistemicsrationalityideology
```
1. At a high level, I strive for a long, peaceful life where I spend time with my loved ones, read, play games, have novel experiences, and learn. Eighty years is a tragically short life, and I am not okay with it. 2. Some important values to me are seeking truth, self honor, independence, connection with others, leadership, decisive action, energy and assertion, as well as showmanship, novelty and whimsy. 3. Culturally, I have absorbed a lot of Hispanic culture and literature, university math, sci-fi/fantasy/videogames/nerd culture, LW-type rationality, and Effective Altruism do-ism. They do not define me, but they go a long way towards explaining who I am and how I got here. 4. Some characters whom I aspire to be like include Miles Vorkosigan from the Vorkosigan saga, Dalinar Kholin from the Stormlight Archive, and Borges. 5. Many aspects of my character I developed on my own, including polyamory and transhumanism. Over time I feel I've become less distinct from my peers, though I feel this is mostly because I have drifted
towards...
```
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A self-description/values thread by Jaime Sevilla (@Jsevillamol), covering life goals, values, cultural influences, literary role models, and self-developed traits (polyamory, transhumanism). Likely saved as an example of explicit personal-values articulation, relevant to the project's interest in identity and self-model construction. Same values thread as the previous screenshot, now showing the author: Jaime Sevilla (@Jsevillamol, a known AI forecasting/Epoch AI researcher), posting a personal identity/values reflection. Likely saved for its explicit self-model articulation, of interest given the project's focus on identity construction, though this is a human's self-description rather than an AI's.
twittervaluesself-descriptiontranshumanismrationalityeffective-altruismidentityjaime-sevilla
Rae @dystopiangf · 12h
High IQ people are good at manipulating and fitting mental lego blocks together. They are NOT inherently good at apprehending truth. Give a high IQ person a bunch of retarded building blocks (i.e. flawed axioms), and they'll build an entire retarded mental castle
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A general opinion tweet about the limits of intelligence for truth-seeking when built on flawed premises — epistemics/rationality commentary, not AI-specific. Uses an ableist slur in the original text (transcribed verbatim as posted).
twitterepistemicsintelligencerationalityopinion
