Pet peeve: stop calling short timelines "optimistic" and long timelines "pessimistic". These create unwarranted connotations that day AI progress is desirable. Most people concerned about AI safety find short timelines dangerous! Instead, use "bullish" vs. "bearish", or just "short timelines" vs. "long timelines".

Ah, good post! I should probably just have refrained from commenting on the design given my limited knowledge. For benchmarking purposes, perhaps these designs are better than the one from Wirecutter:

https://housefresh.com/quiet-air-purifiers/ 

As a non-engineer not working in this space, I can't say much but I've had a lot of similar thoughts (ceiling mounted, outer casing, non-HEPA). I do have my question about your design (and GPT o4-mini-high is pretty skeptical), wondering whether the fan really draws all the air through the filters. This design also doesn't work well in smaller rooms? I personally like "fandeliers" or ceiling-mounted CR boxes that include lighting and actually look decent.

I agree that there seems to be a lot of improvement up for grabs, and I would love to see a company start innovating here and - most importantly - scale up production. 

The problem, however, seems like it would be demand: air purifiers aren't in high demand, and consumers don't notice the difference between high and low CADR (they do notice noise). A company could bet on creating a large, cheap stockpile to sell off at high prices during an epidemic, but I imagine it'd be hard to get investors on board for that. This space probably needs market-shaping, such as advance market commitments or indoor air quality regulations (e.g. mandated PM2.5 levels) creating demand.

Specifically, I think there are some random factors around luck, personal connections and timing that play a big role. 

I don't think that this is a point against DoTheMath. It's just more information to learn from, but in this case learning that you can't just copy the method (if they were lucky) or need to develop/find the right personal connections etc.

I haven't looked into this literature, but it sounds remarkably similar to the literature of cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy for ME/CFS (also sometimes referred to as 'chronic fatigue syndrome'). I can imagine this being different for pain which could be under more direct neurological control.

Pretty much universally, this research was of low to very low quality. For example, using overly broad inclusion criteria such that many patients did not have the core symptom of ME/CFS, and only reporting subjective scores (which tend to improve) while not reporting objective scores. These treatments are also pretty much impossible to blind. Non-blinding + subjective self-report is a pretty bad combination. This, plus the general amount of bad research practices in science, gives me a skeptical prior.

Regarding the value of anecdotes - over the past couple of years as ME/CFS patient (presumably from covid) I've seen remission anecdotes for everything under the sun. They're generally met with enthusiasm and a wave of people trying it, with ~no one being able te replicate it. I suspect that "I cured my condition X psychologically" is often a more prevalent story because 1) it's tried so often, and 2) it's an especially viral meme. Not because it has a higher succes rate than a random supplement. The reality is that spontaneous remission for any condition seems not extremely unlikely, and it's actually very hard to trace effects to causes (which is why even for effective drugs, we need large-scale highly rigorous trials).

Lastly, ignoring symptoms can be pretty dangerous so I recommend caution with the approach and approach it like you would any other experimental treatment.

I'm starting a discussion group on Signal to explore and understand the democratic backsliding of the US at ‘gears-level’. We will avoid simply discussing the latest outrageous thing in the news, unless that news is relevant to democratic backsliding.

Example questions: 

• “how far will SCOTUS support Trump's executive overreach?”
• “what happens if Trump commands the military to support electoral fraud?”
• "how does this interact with potentially short AGI timelines?”
• "what would an authoritarian successor to Trump look like?"
• "are there any neglected, tractable, and important interventions?"

You can join the group here. (If the link doesn't work anymore in the future, DM me.)

For the record, by authoritarian takeover I mean a gradual process aiming for a situation like Hungary (which they've frequently cited as their inspiration and something to aspire to). Given that Trump has tried to orchestrate a coup the last time he was in office, I don't think it's a hyperbolic claim to say he's trying again this time. I'm also not making any claims about the likelihood of success. 

is only getting the upvotes (at the time I posted, it was all upvotes and "agree" reacts), because of the forum's political bias.

I think this is very uncharitable to other Forum users. (Unless you meant "is getting only upvotes [..]")

Oh I was just l looking through how much Trump is/isn't discussed on the forum and came across this comment and saw the many disagrees for the first time. 

I don't think discussing authoritarian takeover is against Forum rules, though EA is not the ideal place for political resistance given its broad amount of causes for which it needs political tractability. However, it's tricky because US political dynamics are currently extremely influential for EA cause areas, and I think we need to do better thinking through how various areas will be affected, and how policies might interact with the affect that the US administration is proto-authoritarian. We should not simply pretend the US administration is a normal one.

That said, in these discussion we should be careful to not descend into 'mere partisanship' though I don't know where that line is. I wish the Forum team would give more guidance. 

I don't think it's that misleading because

• Will Manifold think Trump made a serious about to remain in charge? (35%, n=26, would be ~26% without my bets). Resolves via Manifold poll
• Trump tried something arguably coup-like but it fails (25%, n=44) and the linked "Trump remains in office" is 15% (n=43), putting the total attempt probability at 40%. Other markets put success at lower rates though, which seems more realistic.

The President has also already tried a coup once (fake elector scheme, J6). There's a much bigger case I could make but I don't want to do that here