AI Use Note: Main body text entirely human written. Claude (Opus 4.8) helped develop models of animal life histories in the appendix.
Cross-posted from Good Structures.
Executive Summary
* Animal advocates sometimes make claims like “there are X of this animal...
“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the sp...
Summary
Back in November 2023 I posted here to launch Spiro and raise our first $198k. Two and a half years later this is an update and a fundraiser for the next step.
The short version: we've now reached over-5,900 people with TB preventive medicine, including over 3,000 children under five years old. Our early results have held up well an...
I am an undergraduate majoring in applied math and I am trying to spin towards alignment research. I am finishing up a course in the math of machine learning offered by UIUC. Towards helping others who are in a similar position, I've been working on an article about who might be well-suited for the course, the concepts that you learn about, and ultimately how helpful the course is in becoming a better alignment researcher in comparison to other avenues. At this time I am still writing the post, but I am not very certain about the verity of even the core arguments that I make. So I hope that I can get feedback from others. If the article has misconceptions, the feedback would help me rectify them before I publish this for public viewing. (A potential counterpoint is that the voting mechanism would result in the prominence of the post organically being reduced if many people find fault with it.)
Send me a message or comment if you're interested. I appreciate anyone who'd be willing to provide feedback on this.