Why do people call almost anything a "genocide" these days? 

It's because if it's a genocide, then you're allowed to do extreme acts. 

To defend yourself, you see. 

You see this among the left tribe and the right tribe. 

You see people calling immigration "genocide" against the native population. 

Saying teenagers shouldn't get puberty blockers is called a  "genocide" against trans people.

If you look at both claims at their face value they are clearly ridiculous.

But if you see them as a bid to try to widen the Overton window about legitimate strategies to stop the "problem" they make a lot more sense

As with all things to do with humans, you'll find it's a lot more complicated than just that of course. 

There's the usual word inflation happening. And word inflation is exacerbated by the internet which rewards the people who use the most  inflammatory language. 

There's also woke ideology that encourages people to choose the maximally victimhood mindset. 

That combines especially poorly with idea that you cannot question anybody who claims to be a victim.

There is probably copying on both sides where both sides see the other side saying that everything is genocide and so they think hey, I could use that technique as well.

​And of course, there are actually legitimate genocides that happen. 

I'm just trying to figure out why people are calling almost anything a genocide nowadays. 

Like, having smaller percentage of your population be a particular race due to immigration and different fertility rates is hardly the same as going around with machetes and systematically trying to exterminate a certain race.

Mr Relativist: Let’s just say that “threaten” means “to smile at somebody”. After all, words can mean whatever you want.

Mr Realist (smiling): I’m threatening you right now.

Mr Relativist: Oh Jesus. I get your point. That sounds awful. I know I just said that “threaten” in this conversation now means smile, so you just said you’re smiling at me. But yikes. It just sounds like you’re. . . well, threatening me.

Moral of the story: you can’t just choose a different definition for a conversation if the word already has an everyday meaning.

It doesn’t matter if the scientific or legal or whatever definition of the word is different.

Human brains don’t work that way.

Now, this seems like a silly example because it is. But it was to illustrate the point in an obvious example so that you can see why it also doesn’t work for the way this usually comes up: scientific and legal definitions.

Examples (brackets includes the type of definition that differs greatly from everyday use):

• Fruits and vegetables (scientific)
• Genocide (legal)
• Racism (academic sociological)
• Seasons (scientific)
• Assault (legal)

Take for example “racism”. Sometimes people try to substitute the everyday definition of racism (aka disliking a person based on their race and treating them poorly because of that) to a more academic sociological definition (aka “systemic racism”, policies that cause unfair advantages to certain races).

You can see the problems that stem from this in two ways: both people get confused.

First off, the person being called racist gets upset because they think they’ve been accused of disliking and mistreating people of different races.

Secondly, the accuser gets confused, because they keep subconsciously slipping back to the everyday meaning of the term. Because after all, a person can’t be “a policy that causes an unfair advantage”. Their academic definition of racism is a word that can only apply to policies, not people.

But because the word “racism” is so deeply ingrained in everybody’s mind as the everyday use, it’s really hard to not accidentally keep thinking of it that way. Just like the person in the made up example above can’t just change how they think of the word “threatening”.

The solution to this problem is to use words with their everyday meaning, and only use scientific/legal/formal definitions in contexts where everybody knows the definition and are used to dealing with them that way.

You can’t just invoke the other definition in any old conversation.

If you are in a legal debate at the UN, by all means, use the legal definition of genocide. However, if you are arguing with people on Twitter about immigration or trans rights, don’t use the legal definition. People will think that you are talking about machetes and gas chambers, and they will get confused.

If somebody says “humans are monkeys!” online, don’t jump in and say “well actually, they’re apes!”. You’re not helping. Nobody cares about the scientific definition of monkeys online. Save that for academic conferences.

And if you’re a legal or scientific expert and you’re coining a new term, please please please actually make up new words or combine old words to make new ones. “Systemic racism” is a fine word as long as you always call it “systemic racism” and don’t try to just call it “racism”. That word is already taken. Find a new one.

And if you see somebody doing this to others online, just share this tweet with them. Then maybe we can start threatening each other more while debating online.

I used to be your textbook awkward nerd, and now I’m decently socially skilled (for a nerd, at least 😛).

Here’s how I got better at understanding and interacting with my fellow humans.

The idea is pretty simple, actually. It’s just the implementation that’s tricky.

The idea is making predictions, building models, and learning from the real world.

Basically once I became motivated to improve my social skills (I didn’t want to keep accidentally hurting people’s feelings! And I wanted more friends), I applied my nerd analysis to people.

Before I went to a hangout, I’d pick a topic and a person. I’d think about what I’d say about the topic and, very importantly, I’d make a prediction of how the person would react. 

I would do this based on a model I had of the person (informal model. No spreadsheets. Just general things like “Bob is primarily motivated by intellectual curiosity, truth, and humor. He finds drama and politics boring. It’s late and he’s a morning person, so he’ll probably be a bit grouchier tonight” etc.)

I’d then go out into the world, test the hypothesis, and then on the way back, I’d update my models based on the data. (“Oh interesting. I thought he’d be grouchy cause it’s late, but he wasn’t. Maybe alcohol reduces the grouchiness for him? And he actually was pretty interested in talking about the elections. Maybe he’s just not interested in European politics?”).

It was especially helpful when I was able to do this with a friend who was really interested in psychology and good at it, which sped up the process substantially. But the process works regardless. The main teacher is reality.

It also helps to pair this with “book” learning, so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Most books about “social skills” are incredibly remedial. Read those if that’s where you’re at. If you’re looking for something more advanced than “make eye contact” and “smile”, I recommend reading books about psychology, storytelling, persuasion, sales, management, conflict resolution, etc. They’re all indirectly about social skills and much more advanced.

I recommend:

• Difficult Conversations
• The Righteous Mind
• Made to Stick
• Crucial Conversations
• The Coddling of the American Mind
• Influence by Cialdini
• Charisma on Command, the Youtube channel
• The Charisma Myth

So there you go. Just apply your nerd powers to people. Go forth and make predictions and friends!

Once upon a time, a scientist was driving fast

In a car full of weaponized superebola.

It was raining heavily so he couldn’t see clearly where he was going.

His passenger said calmly, “Quick question: what the fuck?”

“Don’t worry,” said the scientist.  “Since I can’t see clearly, we don’t know we’re going to hit anything and accidentally release a virus that kills all humans.”

As he said this, they hit a tree, released the virus, and everybody died slow horrible deaths.

The End

The moral of the story is that if there’s more uncertainty, you should go slower and more cautiously.

Sometimes people say that we can’t know if creating a digital species (AI) is going to harm us. Predicting the future is hard, therefore we should go as fast as possible.

And I agree - there is a ton of uncertainty around what will happen.

It could be one of the best inventions we ever make.

It could also be the worst, and make nuclear weapons look like benign little trinkets.

And because it’s hard to predict, we should move more slowly and carefully.

And anybody who's confident it will go well or go poorly is overconfident. Things are too uncertain to go full speed ahead. 

Don't move fast and break things if the "things" in question could be all life on earth.

The AIs Will Only Do Good Fallacy.

You cannot think that:

1. AIs will become powerful enough to cure all diseases and fix climate change, and at the same time think that
2. AIs will not become powerful enough to cause catastrophic harms, such as hacking into nuclear codes or creating a pandemic

You either have to believe that:

1. AIs will become powerful enough to do good things and bad things, or
2. AIs will never become very powerful

​While most people might come home from work complaining of a malfunctioning printer or an incompetent boss, my dad mentions that he got chased by a grizzly bear or was threatened with guns by angry logals.

Notice I say mentioned and not complained, for he doesn’t even seem to mind.

My dad can best be described as a mountain goat, or perhaps a mountain man. It’s not the difference between a city mouse and a country mouse. The country is far too tame for him. He lives in and belongs to the wilderness.

Maybe though I shouldn’t call him a mountain man but rather a Mr Magoo of the forest. He does seem to regularly get into the most dangerous situations and survive unscathed and unbothered despite, as far as I can tell, minimal precautions. 

He brings bear spray into the woods, but lives off of canned sardines and mussels, practically asking the bears to come find him. 

I try not to victim blame, but if he gets eaten by a bear, I mean - sardines! 

He was asking for it.

He hasn’t been eaten by a bear. (Yet.) He has been chased by a few though. Most bears are fine. 

The stereotype that Canadians are always having to worry about bears is just that: a stereotype. 

I mean, sure, my recurring nightmares are about bears. And sure, kids grow up knowing bear safety. And maybe if you ask a Canadian, most will know at least one person with a bear scare. 

But really! 

It’s fine.

Unless you’re my dad. Then you’ll hear of him being chased by a male grizzly bear, bigger than a car,  while on a dirt bike. 

He’ll tell of a black bear coming to camp that he hit right on the nose with a flare gun. 

Those are supposed to work. 

The bear apparently didn’t know that, sneezed, and kept coming. 

My dad then rolled a boulder down a hill, scaring the bear away in a scene that must have been repeated for eons before agriculture. 

My dad in a nutshell - a man in the stone age, looking for more stones.

For that is what he does. He looks for gold in them’ thar’ hills. 

Any other minerals too for that matter. He’s a geologist, going around the world and trying to discover the next big deposit that will make us all rich. I have grown up with this refrain. Hasn’t happened yet, but the lure of being independently wealthy off of mining royalties certainly does have its appeal. 

In the meantime though, the job pays well enough and he gets paid to travel to all sorts of exotic locales.

Don’t be too envious though, because he goes to the most dangerous and wild places. 

He doesn’t go to the tourist resorts, where things are safe and clean. He doesn’t even go “off the beaten track” that the hip travellers go to. 

He goes where there are no tracks, sometimes literally using a machete to make it through the jungle.

This has its undeniable romance.

To be an explorer in the jungle has a romantic draw to many of us. However, I do believe that if this population was then given the opportunity to go, most would change their mind less than a week in. 

Having worked with my dad in the summers in the (relatively) benign Canadian wilderness, with no poisonous animals, a decently nearby and functioning medical system, a peaceful society, and being an avid outdoorsy person myself, I can attest to the fact that going into the true wilderness is a pain in the fucking ass.

I remember one time my dad asked me what campsite I would like: the one with the bears or the one with the bugs.

I chose bugs since they’re annoying but non-fatal, but by the end of the trip I was doubting my choice. We were dropped in by helicopter on top of a mountain overlooking the nearby ocean. It was majestic. There weren’t any bugs! What a perfect choice.

The helicopter left, to return two weeks later to bring us back. As it left, I could see a wall of black approaching us. 

The wings of the helicopter had been keeping the bugs at bay. 

It was the worst I’ve ever seen (and my dad says it doesn’t even make his top 50). I had to wear a bug net over my face, otherwise I’d breathe a bug or two with each breath. The moment a single inch of skin was revealed they’d divebomb you, leaving red welts. A cloud surrounded us no matter where we walked.

Among my friends, I am generally known as somebody who can swim anywhere, regardless of temperature or water quality. I am nothing compared to my dad though. 

My dad insisted we swim in a pond, so congested with lilypads and duckweed that you couldn’t see any water. It was only four feet deep. I declined. 

He proceeded to strip, be bitten by approximately ten thousand parasites, slip into the four foot deep pond, sinking into the sludge below, his head still being bombarded by insects, stroll around a bit, go through the same process of being eaten alive, then carry on, proclaiming its refreshment.

He says that bug bites are good for your blood.

Sometimes when he’s in the city, my dad will be baffled and mildly outraged by our city-softness. 

We will complain of having to walk multiple blocks from where we parked, or will refuse going on a walk because it’s raining. Sometimes this can seem puzzling to us because it seems like it’s unecessary suffering. 

The more I come to know him and his experiences though, the more I realize that for him, they don’t even register as discomforts because of how intense the other things he’s gone through have been.

But despite often I worry for his safety (don’t get me started about his trip to the Congo!), I am so grateful to call him my dad. 

He’s taught me how to be happy no matter where you are, and helped me develop a cheerful toughness. 

When most people would terrified about taking the risk of leaving university to start a charity, I just think “At least it’s not bears”.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad! ❤️

​PSA: California’s AI safety bill does not require kill switches for open source models.

People who are saying it does are either being misled or the ones doing the misleading.

AIs under the control of the developer need a kill switch.

Open source AIs are not under the control of the developers, so do not need a kill switch.

Many of the people who are spreading the idea that it will kill open source know this and are spreading it anyways because they know that “open source” is an applause light for so many devs.

Check the bill yourself. It's short and written in plain language:

Or ask an AI to summarize it for you. The current AIs that aren't covered models and don't have the capacity to cause mass casualties so are great and won't be affected by this legislation. 

Gavin Newsom, please don't listen to corporate lobbyists who aren't even attacking the real bill, but an imagined boogeyman. 

Please don't veto a bill that's supported by the majority of Californians.

God I love the internet.

I felt a random craving to learn about historical Azerbaijan and the general Caucasus region (as one does). 

I was able to immediately find and download a German ethnography written in the 1850s about the Caucausus. 

I'm in South Korea right now where it's hard to even find bestsellers in English, let alone obscure German ethnographies about the Caucasus.

Until the internet, I would have had to live near an English university library and even then, it would take money, time, and effort to go acquire this obscure book. Many uni libraries might not even have the book.

And after all of that, I'd have to give it back! 

Thank you, Internet.

Where would us nerds be without you to satisfy our random intellectual cravings?

The essential problem with AI safety: there will always be some people who are willing to roll the dice.

We need to figure out a way to convince people who have a reality distortion field around themselves to really get that superintelligent AI is not like the rest of reality. 

You can't just be high agency and gritty and resourceful. 

Just in the same way that no matter how virtuous and intelligent a cow gets, it can never beat the humans. 

We need to convince them to either change their minds, or we have to use the law and governments to protect the many from the reality distortion fields of the few. 

And I say this an entrepreneurial person who has more self-efficacy than might be good for me. 

But I use that self-efficacy to work on getting us more time to figure AI safety out. 

Even I don't have the arrogance to think that something vastly smarter and more powerful than me will care about what I want by default.

Once upon a time in 2026, an idiot teenager used the AI, LLAMA 5.2, to create superebola.

As a joke, you see.

The problem was, the joke worked.

And because he had at his fingertips the IQ of an advanced AI but the wisdom of an idiot teenager, the superebola got loose.

Over a billion people died slow, horrific deaths.

And Meta, the creator of the AI, the creator who said that you should treat AI the same wait you treat Google Docs, just shrugged and said “wasn’t our fault. We couldn’t have possibly known that if we shared advanced AI with the entire world with no guardrails that this could have happened.”

The Meta folks responsible who were not killed by superebola were killed by angry mobs.

And then all future AIs were heavily regulated and safety standards were taken fucking seriously and everybody lived happily ever after.