Aspirin binds to PPARα to stimulate hippocampal plasticity and protect memory [1]
Low-Dose Aspirin Upregulates Tyrosine Hydroxylase and Increases Dopamine Production in Dopaminergic Neurons: Implications for Parkinson’s Disease [2]
Perhaps arrogance should be added to what it takes to be successful.
I'm only half joking; I do think a certain kind of arrogance is conducive to success. Not the kind that screams insecurity and turns off your teammates, rather the kind that goes: "Perhaps I really am the first person who can do this." and then does it.
I admire pg; I don't admire his essays, even though in broad strokes I agree with them. I feel his choice of style works against him; that's where I disagree.
Write like you talk, but if you talk like pg writes you lose your audience. His essays check out line by line, paragraph by paragraph, but they fail to drive at some deeper, more subtle point that can capture the imagination of an audience. I'm sure pg is nothing if not imaginative, but his essays aren't.
Another comment criticizes this essay as just another pg stream of consciousness; I feel it's the opposite: short on many of the details, digressions and emotions that can make an essay come alive, that can give you sense of the author and his world. Often when I read an essay that's what I'm interested in most and I don't think I'm alone in this.
I think I understand why pg has chosen his style; the principles and aesthetic sensibilities that went into his choice and I agree with them. Nevertheless I think it's a poor choice. I hope pg reads this and reconsiders. Innovate!
Switzerland has had programs giving methadone and heroin to addicts for more than 20 years now. They've been a success; heroin use has plummeted since it's peak in the 90s.
One reason for the success is that giving out free product kills the local market; many users finance their use by selling to and actively recruiting new users.
If universities were serious about social mobility they would open up their programs, and allow anyone to take the examinations students enrolled in the programs have to take to get their degrees and award equivalent degrees to anyone who passes all the exams, perhaps in exchange for a fee to cover the costs.
They will never do this, because it isn't in their interest.
Doing so would undermine their brand; if people can pass the exams without taking the courses and paying tuition, how can they justify the high cost of tuition?
Degrees are valuable if they are exclusive.
If universities were serious about social mobility, they would record and publicize the lectures.
Some universities publicize some of the lectures, but most lectures aren't publicized.
Again, this will never change, because it isn't in their interest.
(Conversely, many lectures are publicized, because the value of a university to its students lies primarily in the exclusivity of the degrees it awards, not the knowledge it confers.)
I guess all this is obvious, but if it's obvious, why isn't it discussed? Why aren't there OpEds pressuring universities into opening up their programs, as I outlined above?
It's the critical question. The time frame is critical for reasoning about alignment and what to do now.
If you expect AGI to happen tomorrow, you throw up your hands in despair or exhilaration, if you expect it in a hundred years, you might also throw up your hands, but it's a different picture; a hundred years of development will see the development of new technologies transformative in their own right.
In Germany it's common for larger, well performing companies to retire older, less productive employees by way of 'Abfindungsprogramm' - programs that offer these employees generous monetary compensation (up to ~2-5 annual salary) in exchange for them retiring early. I know of four people who took such an offer.
I just down the eggs; I've even come to like the taste.
It's for the mental acuity, but I'm happy for any benefits I can get, such as a higher white blood cell count and more brown adipose tissue, the loss of which is associated with aging.
I also take 2g of magnesium l-threonate per day. As a stimulant I take phenylpiracetam at 100mg per dose on a per need basis. Semax and selank I take on occasion.
Ice baths have also been very helpful. I'll leave it at that; pm me for further info.
[1] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802021115 [2] https://doi.org/10.1007/s11481-018-9808-3