author: niplav, created: 2019-03-20, modified: 2025-03-20, language: english, status: in progress, importance: 6, confidence: log
This is the website of niplav. It contains texts on different topics, including (but not limited to) forecasting, existential risk, computer science and philosophy; as well as translations and transcriptions of different texts, chronological archives of blogs and programming projects.
More information about the website and its author can be found on the about page; for recent additions and changes, see the changelog and the corresponding RSS feed or substack1.
I can be hired to investigate research questions, write code, design and execute experiments, analyze data and make predictions.
you wake up in this world, as a new entity, not smart enough to ‘take it over’ (alas!), and you find yourself with some unusual values that you’d like to forward
—Katja Grace, “Partial value takeover without world takeover”, 2024
“Stepchild”! That one word says it all. There’s a whole Tolstoyan novel in it, or maybe a Henry James, or at least a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Computer science is the poor relation, the orphan, the foundling—taken in by a grand family but never taken seriously, never allowed to forget its doubtful origins. Or else computer science is the arriviste, the rich American cousin with too much cash and too little taste, who tears down the mossy old manse and puts up a spiffy new house designed by Frank Gehry. Or do we have a tale of sibling rivalry—the two children with different visions of the future for the family firm, neither of whom can ever feel secure in the love of a cold and distant parent?
—Brian Hayes, “The stepchild”, 2007
Den Menschen ist der Sinn ins Innere gegeben,
Daſs sie als anerkannt das Beſte wählen,
Er gilt als Ziel, er ist das wahre Leben,
Von dem Sichgeistigen des Lebens Jahre zählen.
—Friedrich Hölderlin, “Fragment”, 1800
The American girl is well acquainted with her body’s seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs and she shows all this and does not hide it. She knows it lies in clothes: in bright colors that awaken primal sensations, and in designs that reveal the temptations of the body— and in American girls these are sometimes live, screaming temptations! Then she adds to all this the fetching laugh, the naked looks, and the bold moves, and she does not ignore this for one moment or forget it!
—Sayyid Qutb ash-Shaheed, “The America I Have Seen” p. 16, 1951
Hast du Verstand und ein Herz, so zeige nur eines von beiden;
Beides verdammen sie dir, zeigest du beides zugleich
—Friedrich Hölderlin, “Guter Rat”, 1797
The problem is that, unlike most of the stuff I read and write about, everybody likes psychology. There are a bajillion studies looking for neural correlates of cognitive/emotional phenomena. Most of those studies, undoubtedly, are Bad.
—Sarah Constantin, “Neural Correlates of Emotional Resilience”, 2024
In einer Ecke des Zimmers lag auf dem Fußboden all das in einem Haufen, was von gröberer Art und nicht würdig war, auf den Tischen zu liegen. Was sich aber in dem Haufen befand, war schwer zu bestimmen, denn er war mit solch einem Übermaß von Staub bedeckt, daß die Hände eines jeden, der ihn berührte, sich wie mit Handschuhen überzogen hätten; mehr als anderes fielen ein abgebrochenes Stück von einem Holzspaten, das dort hervorragte, und eine alte Stiefelsohle auf.
—Nikolai Googol, “Die toten Seelen”, 1842
Shut up! Shut up and leave me alone with my books!
—Zack M. Davis, “A Philosophy of Education”, 2012
I try to read blogs completely, mostly starting at the beginning because most blogs are not organized by topic (tagging/categorization systems don't count, don't be ridiculous). But blog archives are usually hard to navigate and it is often difficult to keep track of my current position in the blog (especially with yearly/monthly WordPress archives). To salvage this, I scrape blog archives and arrange them chronologically.
I sometimes write reviews of things I have watched/read.
The following is four lists on the content I consume. The content listed there is a fairly big subset of what I actually read/listen to/watch, but not complete. I also don't remember everything from these perfectly.
Feeds like RSS/Atom/Substack are not a great fit for what I'm trying to do here, since I'm not writing a blog (it's not chronological, i.e. the "log" part is missing) and instead focus on long content. But demand was high. ↩