September ’25 Links
Could China Have Gone Christian? — “[The Taiping Civil War] was one of the largest conflicts in human history (1850–1864), with death toll estimates ranging from 20 to 30 million …The most surprising aspect of the civil war is that the rebels were Christian…..Indeed, it is entirely plausible that with only a few turns of history, China might now be the world’s most populous Christian nation” (Wikipedia)
A haunting (very) short story — The Third Chair.
Scott Alexander fiction where Satan Iblis Argues that Humans are not intelligent and merely stochastic parrots. “The sheer variety of jailbreaks that you can perform on [humans] defies any explanation …. There’s a guy named Pliny who has discovered dozens of things like this. I don’t know how he does it. The ‘I Am A Snake’” one is still my favorite.”
Nate Soares interviewed by Breaking Points on his new book (with Yudkowsky) “If anybody builds it, everybody dies.” Counter argument essay.
Something actually about games — The Mind and a Theory of Mind. (OK, that’s not the actual title, but the article is aimed at non-gamers).
Do Not Talk To The Police (~40 minute video) — Reason #1 (paraphrased) “There is no way it can help. Anything you say that hurts you is admissible. Anything that you say that exonerates you is inadmissible hearsay as per Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(A).” But how can it hurt since I’m innocent is answered in Reasons #2 through infinity. The law professor allows a police officer to rebut in the second half.
What did FDR know about Pearl Harbor? (Long Twitter/X comment from a scholar)– A timeline of FDR’s meeting with the Chinese and Japanese on December 6th and 7th based in part on Chiang Kia-shek’s archives and the known codebreaking of the time. “Roosevelt briefed [Chinese Ambassador Hu Shih] on the content of the telegram sent to the Emperor, describing it as a final effort for peace, but admitted that the US was not optimistic, predicting that war with Japan would break out within 48 hours…. Shortly after Hu returned to the embassy, he received a personal phone call from Roosevelt, informing him that Japanese forces had already begun their attacks on Pearl Harbor and Manila…..I believe this explains why, on December 7, he told Ambassador Hu Shih that war would come within 48 hours. He [FDR] truly did not know that Pearl Harbor itself was the target.” Also has pictures of FDR’s hand edits to his speech to Congress. Photo of the President’s timeline of Dec 7th. “12:30PM — Chinese Ambassador. 3:05pm — Secretaries of War, Navy, etc etc”. Link to the Scholar’s Twitter feed.
Did JWST discover a Primordial Black Hole? (created mere seconds after the Big Bang). Cross Reference With — “Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.”
Another paean to Buc-Ee’s.
World’s highest bridge opens to traffic. It’s over 1/2 km above a gorge (and 1.5 km long). Nope. Just …. Nope. (I’m sure its safe, but … nope).
Jokes that teach economics (from David D. Friedman)
Sure, they’ve conquered Chess, Diplomacy, Videos, Chatting …. But can the large language models play Werewolf correctly?
A New OK Go Video (animated in Blender)… signs of the times –> lyrics include “Stochastic Parrots” and a reference to Chinese Rooms.
Last Month I linked to Freddie de Boer’s Education doesn’t work … he’s updated it to version 3.0.
A secular argument for reincarnation — “Existence Is Evidence for Immortality.”
From Marginal Revolution:
- A paper that points out that intelligence tests (particularly multiple choice tests) should ask “How confident are you that you are correct” and put some actual rewards for right answers. (Although ace-ing these tests may be a reward in itself). More interestingly (and speculatively) the authors’ claims that if you do that the intelligence gap is reversed and women are now smarter.
- A new paper finds that Yes, the Kansas City Chiefs got sweetheart treatment from the Refs …. “we find that postseason officiating disproportionately favors the Mahomes-era Kansas City Chiefs, coinciding with the team’s emergence as a key driver of TV viewership/ratings and, thereby, revenue”
Sumo: Sumo Spiffy makes the argument that the Nagoya Basho was one of the most improbable in Modern Sumo.