Technology advances forced the Census Bureau to use sweeping measures to ensure privacy for respondents. The ensuing debate goes to the heart of what a census is.

This is a great article on a big-name application of differential privacy: it even features an interview with Dworkin! This, to me, seems like a pretty necessary change to preserve the privacy of folks.

via: https://mit.edu/6.1800/www/tutorials/01-intro.shtml

This blog post comes basically in two parts: the role which LLM assistants are trained for is horribly undefined and ontologically hella strange, and AI safety “””researchers””” are basically goading LLMs into misalignment without any concern for the consequences.

As per usual, Dougherty takes a big problem, finds the right abstractions, ruthlessly argues their way to the truth, and settles their realizations succinctly in the original context. One of the best philosophers of our time, on God.

But wanting to be a good person might be your most dangerous motivation.

If our movement is successful, it will be because of tens of thousands of people who all tried different things.”

I am not part of animal advocacy, but these are good rules to live by, nonetheless.

It was impossible for most folks to sit on their couch and watch TV while a guy who was riding his bicycle across America was camped in their backyard. What if he was famous? So I was usually invited into their home for desert and an interview. My job in this moment was evident: I was to relate my adventure. I was to help them enjoy a thrill they secretly desired, but would never accomplish. My account in their kitchen would make this legendary ride part of their lives. Through me and my retelling of my journey, they would get to vicariously ride a bicycle across America. In exchange I would get a place to camp and a dish of ice cream. It was a sweet deal that benefited both of us.

I think the author could do more here to unpack his privilege, but it’s a nice parable nonetheless.

This is a good introduction to hate speech as a legal phenomenon, with emphasis on social media and college campuses. Exposed me to a lot of useful viewpoints.

via: https://lobste.rs/s/hgm2rc/tool_safety_beautiful_soup_zine_2017

Videogame executive Xu Bo, said to have more than 100 children, and other elites build mega-families, testing citizenship laws and drawing on nannies, IVF and legal firms set up to help them

Fucking kill me.

Yeah, I really think I don’t get having children.

Great piece. Especially liked the last two sections.

PIZZARO: But what I can do is build relationships with people who are members of the groups that I might have a slightly negative implicit bias against. I think in my own life one thing that has been a salve for my own racism, for my own prejudices, is to connect with certain people and actually love those people and actually care for those people. And then I feel my prejudices kind of simmering away. And I think that this way I become a better person.

This is a lecture about chapter 14 of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ This chapter is about the popular argument that starts from the claim that there is persistent disagreement about moral matters to the conclusion that there are no objective moral facts or laws. Shafer-Landau is able to turn this argument against moral skepticism itself. This is a pretty long video lecture, but I spend a lot of time modifying the argument, which should be helpful in learning how to deal with arguments themselves. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This video lecture builds off of a reading by MacKinnon & Fiala, wherein they canvas four arguments or reasons that moral skepticism or relativism are attractive. In the video I only discuss two of these reasons : (1) the existence pervasiveness, and persistence of moral disagreement and (2) the diversity of situations in which moral agents find themselves. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

Specifically, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, “Chapter 3. Ethical Relativism » Reasons Supporting Ethical Relativism.”

This is a lecture about chapter 11 of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’ It deals with Moral Skepticism, Moral Nihilism, Moral Subjectivism, Moral Relativism, as well as the global versions of all of these views, which are self-defeating. All of the uses of “Moral” are understood as equivalent to “Ethical”. This lecture is part of an introductory-level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This is a video lecture about chapter 3 (“Moral Error”) of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book ‘Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?’. The argument relies on a distinction between internal and external moral critiques. This is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

This is a lecture about the metaethical terminology used by Shafer-Landau in chapter 3 of his book, “Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?” The theories distinguished include: moral objectivism, moral skepticism, cultural moral relativism, moral subjectivism, error theory (about moral discourse), and non-cognitivism (about moral discourse). It is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics, in the Metaethics unit of that course.

This is a lecture video about a short selection from book 3 of David Hume’s famous work of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40). Hume was an empiricist. The lecture of basically a presentation of his argument from empiricism to the conclusion that there are no genuine, objective moral facts residing in actions themselves (rather, there are only sentiments of moral disapprobation or disapproval in us). This lecture of part of Introduction to Ethics.

Part 2 of The Interfaces With Which We Think

I think it’s important to question the script, even if you decide that you like it. You should be able to explain why you like it. This process of questioning is a radical act. A radical, in its non-pejorative usage, is born when someone questions their life and worldview, decides that they want something else, and seeks out others who came to similar conclusions.