@Jonah Wilberg's post on the Evolutionary One-shot Prisoner's Dilemma explains how the Moloch-like equilibrium of mutual betrayal becomes the standard when agents who can only cooperate or defect interact with each other, then those who receive greater results reproduce themselves. This post had a recent followup where he suggested The Goddess of Everything Else which somehow allowed the agents to receive bigger payoffs from mutual coordination. However, the Goddess of Everything Else has two fairly natural ways to act, which are long-term interactions and acausal trade-like interactions with one's kin.
Evolution of the Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma
It is natural to modify the model of Moloch emerging from the Evolutionary Prisoner's Dilemma. Suppose that the agents play N turns of the Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma, and each of them precommits to cooperate on the very first turn, then imitate what the other player did, unless the amount of turns left is at most m, in which case the agent inevitably defects. Suppose also that the agents receive C when both cooperate, d if both defect, c if only the other agent defects and D if the agent defected and the other agent cooperated. Denote the ratio of agents who precommit to defect during the last m turns as xm. Suppose that two agents who precommited to defect for m1 and m2≥m1 last turns meet each other. If m1=m2, then they cooperate for the first N−m1 turns, receiving C(N−m1)+dm1 reward. If m1<m2, then the first N−m2 turns have both agents cooperate, the next turn has the second agent defect, and all turns after that have both agents defect. As a result, the second agent receives C(N−m2)+d(m2−1)+D, while the first agent receives C(N−m2)+d(m2−1)+c.
Thus, if two agents who precommited to defect during the last m and n turns met, then the first agent receives reward is
Alternatively, one could use ~R(m,n)=(d−C)(max(m,n))+⎧⎨⎩0,m=nc−d,m<nD−d,m>n
Consider the difference of rewards between Agent A who defects at the last m turns and Agent B who defects at the last m+1 turn. An encounter with an agent who defects for the last m+2 or more turns doesn't change anything. An encounter with an agent defecting for the last m−1or less turns has A win C−dmore than B. An encounter with an agent defecting for the last m turns has B win D−C more; an encounter with an agent defecting for the last m+1 turn has B win d−c more. Defining pm:=x0+⋯+xm−1, we find that A wins (C−d)pm+(C−D)xm+(c−d)xm+1 more than B. This factor ensures that cooperation is actually beneficial for a sufficiently large pm, but not for the few most honest agents.
Were the evolutionary model to hold perfectly, deception would establish itself at a logarithmically slow rate since at any step m the amount of time when pm was close to 1 and cooperation was beneficial would have to be comparable with the amount of time when xm or xm+1 were large enough for the defectors to receive benefits.
How distortions affect the IPD's evolution
The next change of the model is rapid diffusion or low situational awareness. Suppose that instead of precommiting to defect after m turns the agent precommits to set the number n to be equal to m, flip 2k fair coins, increase n by 1/2 for every tail and decrease by 1/2 for every head, then to defect at the last n turns. Call such an agent k-quasi-precommited to defect at the last m turns. Then the agent which k-quasi-precommited to defect at the last m turns chooses the number n with probability 2−2k(2kn−m+k). Therefore, the probability Xn to encounter an agent who ends up defecting at the last n turns unless forced to retailate before is
Xn=∑2−2k(2kn−m+k)xm≤2−2k(2kk)
For a large enough value of k the analogue of the probability pm to encounter the agent who defects at the last less than m turns unless forced to retailate would change from 0 to 1 slowly and the values of Xm and Xm+1 would be little, making the agents unlikely to receive big benefits from defection.
Alternatively, the agents can mutate and change the value of m by a big random number during the reproduction with the same results of making xm and xm+1 little and pm change slowly. Once pm exceeds 1/3 while xm and xm+1 are sufficiently little,
the value of coordination at step N−m, which is (C−d)pm+(C−D)xm+(c−d)xm+1, exceeds (C−d)/6, and all agents who coordinate at the median level or lower face a severe pressure to coordinate as compared to the agents with pm∈[1/4;1/3], ensuring evolution towards coordination and not against it.
Interaction with Kin
An alternate source of cooperation is acausal trade-like[1] interaction with one's kin. Suppose that the agent just cooperates with probability pc and the agent who gets to replicate always produces two descendants who have the probability pc±ϵ to cooperate pc+ϵand pc−ϵ. In a finite-dimensional setup, each agent's descendants after at most k generations will not have probabilities to coordinate bigger than pc+kϵ. Then wholesale deception would cause the group of descendants to lose (C-d) of value per kin interaction while gaining at most (D-C) or (d-c) of value per non-kin interaction. Were the interactions with one's kin to severely outnumber the interactions with non-kins, the group would lose value and have a smaller chance of reproduction, meaning that patches of deception cannot grow big even in a cooperator-filled environment. On the other hand, patches of uncertain coordination would be able to outgrow the defectors if the episodes where one cooperates and the other fails are beneficial[2] for the group as a whole: if (D+c)/2>d, then for ϵ≪p≪1 a patch of agents having probability p to coordinate would start outgrowing its deceiving neighbors, since the patch would lose at most p(d−c) per non-kin interaction while gaining 2p((D+c)−2d)+2p2(C−d) as compared to the counterfactual of the patch being filled with defectors.
Conditions of Emergent Coordination
Similar considerations imply that in practice coordination emerges from either acausal trade-like interactions with one's kin and having interactions with them outnumber interactions with the rest of the world[3]or from long-term interactions and the ability of agents to retailate against each other and to mutate so that new holier agents would constantly emerge and prevent the bulk of the sinners from further degradation. What undermines coordination is the ability to attack each other, to exploit a common resourse without retailation risks and the lack of the agents' ability to relate to each other.
Unlike actual acausal trade, where two agents think and each of them decides to coordinate in hope that the counterpart coordinates as well, the mechanism described here doesn't involve anything like moral reflection or decisions.
However, some variants of the Prisoner's Dilemma have the coordinator receive far more severe punishment that what the group would receive if both defected.
A similar mechanism related to kinship and/or mutual retailations might also be an explanation of nostalgia related to small-scale environments where everyone knows everyone else, unlike large-scale ones (e.g. modern cities) where peer groups are far less stable.
Here’s to everyone having a great 2026 in all ways, so I figured what better way to end the year than with a little practical advice. Like everything else, dating is a skill. Practice makes perfect. It helps to combine it with outside analysis, to help you on your quest to Just Do Things.
You’re Single Because You Lack Reps
A common theme in these roundups is that the best thing you can do as a young man, to get better at dating and set yourself up for success, is to get out there and engage in deliberate practice.
Getting dating experience- even when it clearly doesn’t matter- builds social skills and confidence. It’s not something you want to deliberately defer. Dating *is* working on yourself.
Zac Hill: Hard true and also generally applicable. Niko Canner told me a variant of this when I was about to work at Bridgewater to ‘acquire skills’:
“what job are you acquiring skills for?”
“basically my current job”
“we’ll just keep doing that job, and you’ll acquire those skills!”
I didn’t date at all until well into my 20s because of reasons, so I have some experience with this, and it is absolutely was the opposite of correct ‘building myself’ strategy. Totally counterproductive. Even in terms of otherwise building yourself, the skills you get dating will help you elsewhere, and also motivate you and direct you. There are of course temporary exceptions if you go deep into a startup or something, but yeah, absolutely get out there.
As a woman, you typically (by all reports) have no trouble getting reps as such, but there is still the danger that you waste those reps if you keep repeating the same procedures without learning how to improve, which could be in any number of ways including selection.
Note that reps applies the whole way through, and don’t forget to postmortem.
Eliezer Yudkowsky: The way to get good at sex is the same as the way to get good at any other process: Once you’re done, roll out the whiteboard and together do a no-fault analysis of what went wrong, what went right, and what could’ve been done differently.
Reactions divided into “lol u autists” and “well yes that is how it works” and my friends it is the second class that has acquired dangerously high sexual capabilities
le petit postmortem
Sofia: Both reactions are correct
Aella: this is unironically the method behind the best sex of my life.
You’re Single And Didn’t Even Shoot Your Shot
Brooke Bowman: in a romantic context, what does it mean to ‘shoot your shot’? i’m curious what the range of actions the phrase implies is
is it like confessing your feelings/asking on a date or do you also think dropping your handkerchief counts.
I believe it means, both in romantic and non-romantic contexts: Create common knowledge that you are shooting your shot, that you are interested, and that failing to respond positively is a rejection, such that you cannot easily ‘shoot your shot’ again.
Thus, anything can count, including dropping a handkerchief, if both parties know the other is sufficiently advanced.
However, many people especially guys are highly clueless or ambiguously might be clueless, leading to a lot of thinking you shot your shot when you definitely haven’t shot your shot. The threshold is common knowledge, not merely that they pick up on you giving them an opening. That doesn’t count and does not close the book, you have only shot your shot when they know that you know that they know, and so on.
If you are going to keep interacting in the future, beware ‘wasting your shot’ where you create common knowledge without giving yourself much chance to succeed. By definition you only get one shot (or at least, subsequent shots by default will at least be harder). However, that too can have advantages, as now you can move on having shot your shot, and you do create some amount of positive selection, and the act of creating common knowledge means they could reopen things in the future.
You’re Single Because You Didn’t Ask To Hold Her Hand
Any time someone says ‘I don’t see how this can backfire’ you definitely shouldn’t take their advice until you’ve figured out how it can backfire.
Could this somehow backfire? I claim it can’t. Let’s game it out.
The suggestion isn’t that you do more requested hand holding while dating, it is to use this request as an escalation move out of a potential friend zone.
The theory is that your romantic intent here is obvious, expressed in a non-creepy way, thus creating common knowledge, but it is not explicit so it is deniable common knowledge so you can still retreat to a friendship on a fail, she’ll at least be impressed you tried and maybe she eventually decides to return interest even if she doesn’t now, and probably she actually says yes and you can keep building from there.
This is in contrast to Bryan’s advice to do this on all first dates, or at least to establish you are indeed on one, and as a way of establishing common knowledge of the situation and failing fast.
The part I 100% agree with is, provided you are interested, you are better off doing something rather than doing nothing, whether on an existing date or not. Shoot your shot, whatever your shot may be. And yes, if you’re too shy or unskilled to take a better or more subtle shot, then this is a shot one can take take.
That doesn’t mean it should be this shot. So, let us count the ways this can backfire.
She says no, where on a better executed move she would have said yes. Then it is much harder for you to try again, indeed the whole point here is that you wouldn’t try again. Skill absolutely matters, and this by design is a case of you only get one shot. Contra Liron, no, you’re not going to get a yes a majority of the time.
In addition to it coming off weird or as representing a lack of skill or awareness, this can be seen as insufficiently ambiguous or too far up the escalation ladder if you go too early.
One thing is if she’s looking for a more casual vibe, going for ‘romantic coded’ actions like holding hands too early can give the ick when you were live. There’s a Sex and the City where exactly this ask is an instant dealbreaker, even after they’ve slept together, because it was a failure to read the room.
She says no, where on a better executed move that did not force clarity you would have gotten a maybe or a soft no that lets you stay in the game. Forcing clarity can work against you. This is fine if you’re shooting a bunch of shots, but not if this is an especially valuable shot to shoot.
She says no, and rather than being impressed she is not impressed or weirded out, thus leaving the friendship in a worse position. Cost of shooting shots, but that’s one way in which it is not riskless, and the less ambiguous and more awkward the shot the greater the risk of this.
She says yes, but it’s awkward in context, and so on.
Again, I don’t want to discourage anyone too much here. It is far from the worst move, and again something beats nothing. But we don’t believe in misleading anyone.
You’re Single Because You’re Afraid People Will Mock You Online
Bumbadum (2.1m views): This type of behavior killed romance and I hate you people for it.
I hate the knowledge that millions of young men cannot hope to ever express love in the purest most beautiful way because you disgusting whores will post it on social media and mock in private.
Young men lost the ability to express those feelings. To write, to feel, to be comfortable. They have to bury deep down and hide it from the world less they be cruelly mocked.
You disgusting hags lost the ability to ever see it. You disgusting cretins all wish to have a Notebook love story meanwhile any feeling of that unconditional love is met with mockery.
I hate you all.
I am getting DM’s that essentially describe romance movie plotlines that end with “but she hated romance”
Unfortunately Rona Wang (understandably) took her Twitter private by the time I got to this, so I couldn’t gather more context there, but there are some obvious notes here.
The context is that she was the only girl at the hackathon. That’s a context where you don’t open at all, in any form, without strong indications of interest. If this was done in an ordinary mixed context, presumably that would be different.
This is a clear NRN (no reply necessary) opening, which makes it less of a problem than opening moves that require a response, but even outside of the gender imbalance context I wouldn’t call it ‘romance.’
You think this thread is bad for the guy who passed her the note?
As in, no one knows who passed this note. He’s fine. And indeed, you have a play available, which is to reply with some version of ‘I am the guy who sent the note, she didn’t reply so I’m still single, I live in city and my DMs are open.’ Yes, many of the DMs won’t be kind, but if you’re okay with that, 61 million views on OP and it only takes one hit. If the context was different such that you looked better, you’re all set.
Then on Nicole’s post (original had 5m views):
Pretty sure it worked.
Many of the comments assume that it didn’t and it was awful, but that it is odd given that the document says that it worked.
This is indeed a high risk, high reward play, because you are putting her on the spot and if the answer isn’t an enthusiastic yes then oh boy is it no, you haven’t given her an out, the same way you really, really don’t want to propose and get anything but a yes.
Third date is almost always going to be too early to do this, and also as executed it risks coming off as rather creepy and weird, even if you did read the room right.
So it’s almost always a bad play as executed.
Allyson Taft’s screenshotted post: A guy did this to my best friend on a 3rd date, and we started calling him “Mr. Check Yes or No” in the group chat, and she never saw him again.
Pat Stedman: Only works if she is already eager to be your girlfriend. NEVER do this stuff if there is any uncertainty, it will work against you.
Brandon Burr: Stories like this are why a lot of guys in the dating world stopped trying to be romantic. It’s punished severely by a lot of women, unfortunately.
Allyson Taft: I believe it. I think being able to read the room is an important skill for everyone, always, but especially in dating.
Mimetic Value: You’re overanalyzing it and took it too seriously. This is exactly what I’d do if the date is NOT going well. It’s for giving her a final chance to confirm that he didn’t accidentally write her off too soon. He was already mentally checked out.
Allyson Taft: He sure called her a lot afterwards for being checked out lmao.
Also known as, it’s good to be romantic, but you have to do a decent job of it. And you don’t want to put them to a decision like this unless you’re fine with being dumped if the answer isn’t an enthusiastic yes. The rest of the dinner was presumably also romantic, and was presumably a good idea if it had ended without this.
I’m not pretending I am the best at being romantic, but don’t give up on the idea.
You’re Single Because You Didn’t Confirm Your Date
What are or should be the rules around confirming a date?
A better question is, how should you navigate such situations yourself?
Because rules, shumules. Play to win.
So first off, the background and various reactions.
Brooke Lin (19m views): From a friend and for context the previous convo was sunday night but who is in the wrong here?
We got an update folks.
Liron Shapira: Lol I used to give male dating advice, and one of the major focus areas was “flake defense”.
(Flake defense turned out critical for meeting my wife.)
The purple person here, who took the lead on the invite, should’ve demonstrated their attractive flake-defense skill afterwards.
Cate Hall: People have this all wrong. We should be encouraging this kind of behavior. Just think how much time this guy saved.
Allie: Ladies: if you say yes to a date, you’ve agreed to go on the date
Playing games like “he needs to confirm or it doesn’t count!!!” because TikTok told you to is a really dumb way to waste your time
Be picky about things that matter, but quit making up rules to be upset about.
Autistotle: “Making up rules to be upset about” is at least half of all dating discourse.
Lovable rogue: honestly as a guy who confirms *every* time, women still flake ~10-15% of the time. we should be trying to make the date happen not shit test each other!
Shailesh: I always confirmed the previous evening. Yoo many times when they cancelled when I checked up 1 hr-30 min before.
Mason: Maybe the real problem with the apps is that nobody is actually very excited about the person they’re about to go on a date with at all. You are supposed to be looking forward to the date more than, like, a dentist appointment.
Jordan Braunstein: I think everyone is underestimating the absolute scourge of flakiness among both young men and women. There’s no real social penalty for it anymore.
If there’s a good chance the other person will flake, it becomes game theoretically rational to mitigate that risk by having extra confirmations or readily available backup plans.
Gingercap: I kind of got the impression that being too excited about a date is kind of cringe and comes off as desperate.
Noodle: Ehh when I was dating I made the mistake to get ready for the date only to be stood up or ghosted. Nothing wrong with confirming a date because its embarrassing to be waiting around forever for no reason.
Tetraspace: If you’re going “yay I don’t have to go to the date :)” instead of “oh man I wanted to go to the date :(” something has went wrong earlier than the morning of the date
There are remarkably deep strategic and mechanism design considerations here. What the rules ‘should’ be is again not so relevant, nor is ‘who is at fault’ per se.
So here are some various thoughts.
If you are happy or righteous or similar about being able to cancel the date when they don’t confirm, you shouldn’t have said yes in the first place.
The flake rate, on all sides, is sufficiently high that the default should now be to confirm on the day of the date. The cost of confirmation is low. In general as the asker it is your job to ensure the date actually happens.
I can believe that we have reached the point where the flake rate when not getting confirmation is high enough that it is reasonable for the person asked to require confirmation and to treat this as a default dynamic.
If you require confirmation, ideally you should note that you require confirmation, or better yet proactively ask for it if you don’t get it. But there are selection effect and signaling reasons to not do this. Either way, once you know you’re not going to show, you should explicitly cancel, not silently flake.
If you don’t say you require confirmation, and don’t show without it, you flaked.
Flaking is in general extremely poor form and should be treated as a very expensive action in all contexts, romantic or otherwise, especially without notice and especially without apologies.
If your lack of confirmation causes flaking, that is often favorable selection. If their lack of confirmation causes you to flake, that is also favorable selection.
If lack of same day confirmation causes flaking on a first date, that is still an unforced error by all involved. In other circumstances, either subsequent dates or non-romantic contexts, this is often not true.
Confirmation can give both parties an out, so it serves a useful purpose when someone is getting pressured, but it is bad to give people an easy flake out because people will constantly cancel plans of all kinds when they shouldn’t.
If this is a ‘test of enthusiasm’ or otherwise phrased or presented in ways similar to the OP then I would consider it a red flag.
You’re Single Because You Didn’t Have Your Big Moment At The Prom
My revealed preference at the time was not to go at all, have no real options for going and make no effort to go. Neither of these options was remotely on the table, although I would like to think I would have happily accepted either of them.
So I’m not sure I’m the best person to judge the options?
Romy: imagine you’re a high school senior and it’s prom season. would you rather go with a 10 who will definitely not have sex with you, or a 7 who definitely will?
Kip: I chose the no sex option because I didn’t want to have sex yet in high school
Ronny: lol a 7 who will *definitely* have sex with you is a disturbing option in that case.
I was thinking in terms of ‘you have no future with either of them, everyone is going to say goodbye and head off to college.’ If there is a real future involved then that should presumably dominate the question either way. As does the question of whether anyone believes in the pairing, including especially the two of you.
You’re Single Because Board Games Came Between You
What does one make of what was intended to be a singles event in which the men ended up playing board games and getting to know each other, while the women talked and got to know each other?
Tracing Woodgrains: dudes rock
there’s actually a lot to be said about the framing of the paragraph — the women preferred to talk, the men preferred board games, the women lamented that the men didn’t talk with them bc they didn’t feel like playing board games with the men
both are good activities!
Ben Hoffman: This feels like a good example of the sort of information I’d have responded wrongly to, before I learned that if a woman keeps complaining about men doing X, that’s most likely an expression of preference for the sorts of men who do X, not an offer to transact with men who don’t.
The article of course framed this as the guys refusing to interact with the women, rather than both sides choosing distinct activities, and also it seeming still great?
It seems like a good use of an evening to play board games where I meet new friends, or I sit around and talk and meet new friends, whether or not I am single. We all need more friends. The woman here says she left with potential new friends too.
It does seem like it should not be a stable equilibrium. Why didn’t any of the women join the board games? Why didn’t any of the men go monopolize all the women? Both seem like highly overdetermined strategies, at least on repeated play, if things aren’t already going great.
You’re Single Because You Can’t Dance
Knowing how to dance, especially as a guy, remains a cheat code. It’s not as effective as it used to be because opportunities come up less often, and certainly it’s optional, but it is still very clearly a cheat code.
Cartoons Hate Her asserts it no longer works because if you dance like no one’s watching, your assumptions might be wrong, and then someone might film you and put it on the internet and suddenly everyone’s watching. Why take the risk?
The answer is because that risk is dumb. This is similar to worries about children being kidnapped by strangers. No one is filming you and even if they are no it is not going to go viral, and if it does you will probably be fine or even benefit.
You’re Single And Should Try Punching
Brittany Hugoboom advises you to approach the truly beautiful women who seem out of your league but aren’t the type that thrive on and seek out attention, because often no one else will shoot their shot and you end up with little competition while everyone else goes for the ‘beautiful mid.’
The comments are full of the usual ‘you don’t get it men are afraid to approach women due to potential retaliation’ but this completely misses the point here, which is that men are (statistically speaking) approaching the wrong women. There’s also a bunch of ‘oh we assume she already has someone or always has options’ whereas the whole point of the post is this often isn’t true, unless she’s willing and able to initiate, at least sufficiently to indicate the coast is clear.
Yes, of course she (and most other women) can get infinite attention on apps, but most strongly prefer to get approached organically if at all possible.
You’re Single Because You Don’t Send Out Receptive Energy
Ask for and set up what you want and you’re more likely to get it.
Eoin Walsh: The Men are not in vegan restaurants in downtown Manhattan.
Sasha Chapin: So I have no desire to comment on the culture war issues at play. I will note that I have had the following conversation with a number of women asking for advice, like, a half dozen
Them: “I want men to take charge and act like men”
Me: “Do you prompt that with receptive energy?”
Them: “…what?”
Meanwhile, women I know who understand how to do this have zero trouble! Seduction is a two-way game. A couple of women have taken my advice on this and found it life-altering.
In general, you will have a much better time in life if you assume that it is your responsibility to prompt the interactions you would like to have.
Annals of people taking this advice seriously:
This person just gave me permission to mention that she’s been in a relationship for a month and it appears to be going well so far.
You’re Single Because You’re A Depressed Comedian
The higher the stakes the better the first date idea, so sure, go for it. Waiting in line for a while also gives you a forced time excuse to talk.
Signull: If you want an elite-tier first date idea, here’s the cheat code: Buy tickets to a comedy show in NYC and deliberately show up disgustingly early so you get planted in the front row like sacrificial offerings.
If the two of you can survive 90 minutes of being roasted by several lonely, depressed comics in graphic tees who pretty much look homeless, congrats, that’s basically a huge relationship stress test.
Whatever comes after (assuming you didn’t get a reality check) will feel like easy mode.
I was the depressed comic.
You’re Single Because You Didn’t Hand It To Her
Grace Jarvis: if a woman tells you you have “nice hands” she is doing everything in her power not to fuck you senseless please release her from her torment her friends are receiving the kinds of messages someone in prison would send
Grave Jarvis (14 months later): the person who kinda inspired this tweet and I have been together for over a year now
by “kinda inspired” I mean, I thought “oh he has nice hands” and then I didn’t say anything because of the implication and wrote down the funniest hyperbolic version
Ted Knutson: Can confirm with large sample size that this is true.
You’re Single And Need The Right Reward Function
A very wise rule. If you don’t want to get feedback from someone, don’t date them, definitely don’t marry them, and probably don’t be friends with or work with them.
Chris Lakin: The reason that RLHF doesn’t work for your personality is there are very few people you want feedback from
Jakeup: only marry someone whose feedback you want as your reward function.
Chris Lakin: only date people whose feedback you want as your reward function.
Now imagine being an LLM and having to get feedback from *shudder* everyone.
You’re Single So Focus On The Basics
Brittany Hugoboom says focus on the basics that matter. You need shared values and a baseline level of physical attraction, and a few key traits, the rest is more of a bonus. Sorting for other things, as dating apps lead you towards, is in her model largely a trap.
Brittany Hugoboom:
• Men, look for courage, justice, ambition, and discipline.
• Women, look for benevolence, loyalty, and a kind heart.
I always say: the best case scenario is finding love young. Not because it’s the only way. But because when you’re young, you’re more adaptable.
If you both come from good families, they’ll cheer you on.
You can build something from the ground up, together.
Love after 30? Absolutely possible.
But if you’re young and thinking about love, don’t let the world scare you out of it. We’re often told to wait forever and then older generations wonder why the young is no longer finding love.
When you’re young, school is a great place to meet someone.
So is church. A party. An event. Through mutual friends. I’d argue even Twitter or Substack would be a better way to find someone than a dating app.
If you like someone’s mind and values, and also happen to like their photo, it’s perfect.
Mason: Honestly, “girl who gets bull-headed and wears cargo pants when he tells her to wear the dress” and “guy who told her to wear the dress but is amused by the cargo pants” are both lovable types
Mazel tov, be married 50 years and bicker about the throw pillows on your deathbed
She’s a terrible match for someone who takes this kind of thing personally, but it doesn’t look like she’s marrying that kind of guy
He looks absolutely thrilled
Marilyn Maupin: I got yelled at by so many people for saying they’ll be fine since she clearly understands what she did to herself
Mason: Seriously, as long as she’s laughing at herself instead of doubling down and insisting he’s the jerk for proposing to her in the cargo pants they’re fine. Twitter consists of the most disagreeable people in the world insisting that everyone shy of perfect agreeableness is ngmi
I’d be thrilled too. You have a much better story this way, and it probably went fine given she posted it like this. If she’s actually mad about it, then yeah, red flag, but at the best possible time.
You’re Single Because You Don’t Just Do Things
Alberto De Lucca: My wife and I spoke many times about marrying. During one of these convos, I plain asked her: “do you want to marry me?” She said yes. I said, “ok, let’s do this.” We went out the next day and bought our rings (plus her engagement ring). We then planned to marry on her birthday party (a couple weeks in) but told no one. In fact, they thought I was going to propose to her.
Anyway. Party starts. She gets on a mic. “Thank you for coming to my birthday everyone.” I get on my knees behind her. Everyone starts doing the awws and whatnot. I do the deed. She says yes. Everyone’s happy. On cue, my mother asks: “so when’s the wedding?” We look at each other: “how about today? Is there anyone who can officiate this marriage?”
In walks the registrar with the papers. “I can, sure.” Waiters and personnel change the decor from a birthday party to a wedding party. We got married minutes later.
The look on the faces of our families is something I’ll never forget.
I focus on the z=1 case, meaning that exactly one circuit is active on each forward pass. This restriction simplifies the setting substantially and allows a construction with zero error, with T=D2d2. While the construction does not directly generalise to larger z, the strategy for mitigating error should still be relevant. I think the ideas behind the construction could be useful for larger z, and the construction itself is quite neat.
Signal from the active circuit bleeds into inactive circuits, and this signal then enters back into the active circuit as noise in the next layer.
The key issue is not that inactive circuits briefly receive nonzero activations, but that these activations persist across layers and are allowed to feed back into the active computation. Once this happens repeatedly, noise accumulates.
The goal of this post is to eliminate this failure mode entirely in the z=1 setting.
High-level idea / TLDR:
The construction given in this post enforces a simple invariant:
At layer 2i of the larger network, the active circuit’s state at layer i of it's small network is embedded in one of Dd fixed orthogonal d-dimensional subspaces of the large network.
Each of the T circuits is assigned one of these d-dimensional subspaces to store its state in when it is active (multiple circuits may share the same subspace).
The subspace in which the active circuit’s state lives is provided as part of the input via a one-hot encoding. Using this, we can explicitly remove any signal outside the active subspace with an additional error-correction layer before the next layer is computed. This prevents inactive circuits from ever influencing the active circuit across layers.
Construction:
Memory blocks:
Let the large network have D neurons per layer. We partition these neurons into
Dd contiguous memory blocks, each consisting of d neurons.
We assign each of the T small circuits to a memory block via a map
f:[T]→[Dd]
If a large-network neuron is associated with circuit i, neuron j, then it writes its output to position j of the f(i)-th memory block.
A single large-network neuron may be associated with multiple small-circuit neurons, and thus may write to multiple memory blocks. However, we impose the following constraint:
Any two circuits associated with the same large-network neuron must be assigned to different memory blocks.
This constraint is crucial for enabling exact error correction.
Input:
The input consists of an input x∈Rd placed in the f(j)-th memory block, where j is the active circuit. We are also given a one-hot encoding of f(j), and a one-hot encoding of a pointer to neuron sets (defined later). In total we need D(1+2d) neurons for the input.
[The fact that the input x is placed in the correct memory block is just for convenience: given the one-hot encoding of f(j), as long as x∈Rd is stored in a known location, it can be moved to the f(j)-th memory block using a single additional layer.]
Error correction via block clearing:
Assume that we are given f(j) one-hot encoded as part of the input, where j is the (unique) active circuit. This requires only Dd additional neurons.
After each layer of computation, we insert an error-correction layer that zeroes out all memory blocks except the f(j)-th memory block (add a large negative bias followed by a ReLU).
As a result:
Inactive circuits may temporarily receive signal.
However, all such signal is erased before the next layer by an error-correction layer.
Inactive circuits never feed information back into the active circuit.
We also learn a bias vector bi∈RDfor each memory block i.
This bias is implemented as a linear map applied to the one-hot encoding of f(j), where j is the active circuit.
Because circuits assigned to the same memory block are disjoint, this allows us to exactly match the bias terms of the active circuit.
Selecting the active neuron set:
We additionally need to one-hot encode a pointer to the set of neurons associated with the active circuit j.
Since z=1, there is no need to impose further constraints on the neuron sets beyond the memory-block condition. In particular, each memory block can reuse the same neuron sets for its circuits (for example, Dd contiguous sets of d neurons).
Thus, the pointer only needs to be of size Dd.
Using this pointer, we zero out all neurons except those corresponding to the active circuit (via a large negative bias). Given that the bias is set correctly, the output on the d neurons associated with the active circuit is exactly the output of the next layer of the small circuit. The memory-block clearing step then ensures that only the output written to block f(j) is retained.
Result:
The final construction has:
D(1+2d) large-network width,
2L layers,
and it can exactly encode
T=D2d2 (Dd disjoint circuits per memory block, and Dd memory blocks.)
small circuits, each with:
width d,
L layers.
The simulation error in the z=1 case is exactly zero.
Testing:
I have tested this construction up to T=16384,D=1024,d=8, using this Google Colab script. (So exactly encoding 16384 randomly initialized circuits of width 8, given a (1024+256) width network). I have only tested one-layer networks, but since the output format matches the input format, this is sufficient to validate the construction.
Is this trivial?
In hindsight, this construction feels close to a triviality. However, it was not obvious to me prior to working it out.
Being given an encoding of the active circuit simplifies the problem substantially. That said, there are realistic scenarios in LLMs where something similar occurs (for example, two-token names, where we want to apply a circuit indexed by the referenced entity). You could use the first token of a name as the memory block, and the second token as the neuron set pointer, for example.
One way to think about the memory block encoding is as specifying a coarse circuit family, with the neuron-set pointer selecting the specific circuit within that family. It is plausible that real models implement something like this implicitly.
Finally, the z=1 assumption is doing a lot of work: it removes almost all constraints on neuron-set reuse and allows the pointer to the active neuron set be very short. One possible mitigation for larger z would be to dynamically learn which set of neurons should be active on each forward pass using an additional error-correction layer prior to each layer of circuit execution. This would require roughly doubling the network width, and an additional L layers.
What are the broadly applicable ideas here?
In my opinion the useful idea here is dividing D-width networks into Dd fixed memory blocks of width d. This makes error correction simple, because we know the subspace in which the current circuit's state lives, and so can zero out it's complement.
For larger z, if we assume that there are no memory block collisions (i.e: only a single circuit is active at once per memory block), then the same error correction trick should be possible to mitigate the feedback error from inactive circuits. But memory block collisions would be catastrophic. I think there is reasonable justification for an assumption of the form "only one circuit from each family activates", though.
I often see people who stopped exercising because they felt like it didn’t matter compared to x-risks. Especially if they have short timelines.
This is like saying that the best way to drive from New York to San Francisco is speeding and ignoring all the flashing warning lights in your car. Your car is going to break down before you get there.
Exercise improves your:
Energy
Creativity
Focus
Cognitive functioning.
It decreases:
Burnout
Depression
Anxiety
It improves basically every good metric we’ve ever bothered to check. Humans were meant to move.
Also, if you really are a complete workaholic, you can double exercise with work.
Some ways to do that:
Take calls while you walk, outside or on a treadmill
Set up a walking-desk. Just get a second hand treadmill for ~$75 and strap a bookshelf onto it et voila! Walking-desk
Read work stuff on a stationary bike or convert it into audio with all the text-to-speech software out there (I recommend Speechify for articles and PDFs and Evie for Epub on Android)
Of course, I recommend against being a workaholic. But even if you are one, there is just no excuse to not exercise. You will help the world more if you do.
In the previous post in this sequence I argued that Evolutionary Prisoner’s Dilemma (EPD) offers a useful model of the subject-matter of Scott Alexander’s Meditations on Moloch (MoM) - one that fits the details of that essay better than the standard interpretation of Moloch as the God of collective action problems, explains why the essay has seemed so insightful, and why a mythological framing makes sense.
In this post, I’ll consider the implications of this for the practical challenge of ‘defeating Moloch’ - addressing the civilizational dynamics that generate existential and catastrophic risks from nuclear arms races to paperclip maximisers.
Why Moloch Can’t be Defeated (on its own terms)
To start with, it’s worth understanding a strong sense in which Moloch-aka-EPD is invincible. In particular, the standard approaches to addressing collective action problems don’t work with EPD.
Why Social Preferences Won’t Work
One way to solve the standard (non-evolutionary) prisoner’s dilemma is through social preferences. Real people, it turns out, often don’t choose Defect in Prisoner’s Dilemma experiments played with real payoffs - instead, they choose to Cooperate because their actual utility function has an altruistic or social or fairness component not reflected in the payoff matrix (which because it reflects real quantities such as money does not have to reflect total utility).
On the standard interpretation of Moloch as the God of collective action problems like one-shot prisoner’s dilemmas, a way to defeat Moloch would be to spread social preferences: to foster a culture-change towards altruism and fairness, resulting in more cooperators in the population, and more one-shot collective action problems being solved.
But if we reframe Moloch as the God of EPD, this approach no longer works.
First of all, remember that EPD is a model in which the average expected payoff - and therefore relative fitness - of Cooperate is less than that of Defect, which means that Cooperate inevitably ‘spreads’ less than Defect. So spreading Cooperate through the culture is strictly impossible in the model.
OK, but we know spreading a culture of cooperation is not strictly speaking impossible in the actual world, you might say. The spread of religions like Christianity or Buddhism in their early stages might be good examples. And maybe the social preference method for defeating Moloch aims for something like that.
But this is where MoM comes back and says, sure: Moloch-aka-EPD is just an approximation of the actual world, like all mathematical models. Maybe sometimes it’s possible to get a burst of cooperation. But EPD is the long-term trend. At some point you run up against the limits of natural resources, or technological innovation enables new forms of Defect, and the dream-time is over. The default, long-term dynamics of EPD kicks in, and Cooperate declines slowly to zero.
Note that a relevant aspect of the EPD model here is that the proportion of cooperators in the initial state does not change the subsequent dynamics. So if you treat the temporary burst of cooperation as an exogenous shock to the system, the number of cooperators will still subsequently decline.
The proportion of cooperators declines to zero irrespective of the initial state.
It’s true that if the initial state is 100% Cooperate then according to EPD it can stay that way. But this implies that to be successful the social-preference-culture-change model has to somehow reach 100% of the population - hardly a realistic goal even for the most ambitious ‘cultural revolution’. (And even if it were somehow possible, this equilibrium would then still be vulnerable to a single defector that would start the ball rolling downhill again.)
Why Changing the Payoffs Won’t work
Another approach to solving the standard prisoner’s dilemma is changing the payoffs.
In standard PD, the payoffs are often represented by the letters R, P, T and S. If both players cooperate, they both receive the ‘reward’ R for cooperating. If both players defect, they both receive the ‘punishment’ P. If one defects while the other cooperates, the defector receives the ‘temptation’ payoff T, while the cooperator receives the ‘sucker's’ payoff, S. PD is then defined by the inequality T>R>P>S.
The classic example of changing the payoffs is having the mob-boss threaten to shoot those who defect - making for a significant reduction in the expected payoffs T and P.
More generally, governance mechanisms like taxes and credits can increase the payoffs for Cooperate and/or decrease the payoffs for Defect so that it’s no longer true that T>R>P>S.
In theory the same approach is available in EPD.
A key assumption of the model is of course that the interaction between individuals is defined by Prisoner’s Dilemma payoffs which map onto fitness.
And one can certainly imagine changing these payoffs, so that it is the cooperate strategy that is better at replicating.
But there’s a crucial practical difference between EPD and classic PD. PD models a specific collective action problem with a specific set of players. EPD models a whole system: an entire population and all the collective action problems arising from their interactions.
So it’s not enough to change the payoffs for a specific problem by means of, say, a bilateral nuclear disarmament treaty, or by improving governance at a specific lab. Changing the EPD payoffs means changing the whole system at once.
And this is no more realistic as a practical goal than achieving the 100% of cooperators in the social preference model.
A Dark God
Incidentally, this pessimism about defeating Moloch is very much implied in MoM. This is why Scott Alexander suggests that our only hope for defeating Moloch is an AI singularity that might actually have a chance of changing the system all at once.
“The opposite of a trap is a garden. The only way to avoid having all human values gradually ground down by optimization-competition is to install a Gardener over the entire universe who optimizes for human values.
And the whole point of Bostrom’s Superintelligence is that this is within our reach … the sheer speed of the cycle makes it possible that we will end up with one entity light-years ahead of the rest of civilization, so much so that it can suppress any competition – including competition for its title of most powerful entity – permanently. In the very near future, we are going to lift something to Heaven. It might be Moloch. But it might be something on our side. If it’s on our side, it can kill Moloch dead.”
This is not only further evidence that MoM is about EPD, it’s an additional reason for thinking of EPD as a God in the first place. EPD is godlike in being basically omnipotent and impossible to defeat - except perhaps by another God.
The Goddess of Everything Else
While it may be impossible to defeat Moloch on its own terms - aside from salvation by superintelligence - one can still find a source of hope in the idea that Moloch-aka-EPD is inaccurate or at least incomplete as a model of civilizational dynamics.
If another God is required to transition from EPD to a better evolutionary game, maybe we don't need to create such a God - maybe that God already exists.
This mythological narrative portrays a divine conflict between the Goddess of Cancer and the eponymous goddess.
The Goddess of Cancer - whose catchphrase is ‘KILL CONSUME MULTIPLY CONQUER’ - is clearly a variant of Moloch, and an alternate incarnation of EPD. Her first act is the creation of biological life, “miniature monsters engaged in a war of all against all”, which - if her name wasn’t enough - makes clear the connection to evolutionary dynamics.
Her opponent, the Goddess of Everything Else, represents a dynamic of cooperation which fosters the diverse goods and activities that her opponent throws under the bus. Rather than oppose the Goddess of Cancer directly, however, she achieves this goal by redirecting the evolutionary dynamics of replication and selection:
“I say unto you, even multiplication itself when pursued with devotion will lead to my service”.
Examples of this include: the cooperation of cells in multicellular organisms, the cooperation of organisms in communities, pair-bonds and family units, and the cooperation of humans in trade, religion, industry and art - all of which provide fitness advantages that allow the cooperators to outcompete the defectors. The story ends with an optimistic vision in which humanity spreads over stars without number, “no longer driven to multiply, conquer and kill”.
The Goddess of Everything else is therefore an excellent match for what you would get if you changed the payoff matrix in EPD such that R>T>S>P. This payoff structure is often called ‘Harmony’, so we can call the evolutionary model ‘Evolutionary Harmony’ (EH).
Here is the graph showing the proportion of cooperators against time for EH.
EH is essentially the inverse of EPD. Because the reward for cooperating (R) is greater than the temptation for defecting (T), and payoffs are linked to reproductive success in the same way as in EPD, cooperators outcompete defectors and over time dominate the population.
Practical implications
We’ve seen that, if Moloch-aka-EPD is a fundamental model of civilizational dynamics, the main practical implication is that we need AGI to save us.
But if, on the other hand, Moloch is best understood as a partial model, such that the opposite Goddess dynamics also exist, what practical implications should we draw?
The overall picture here is that global systems can be modelled by Evolutionary Game Theory, along the lines of EPD, but that payoffs can vary between different subsystems.
It remains true that the standard methods of solving coordination problems will have limited effectiveness against Molochian dynamics. But these methods can now be recast as ways of supporting Goddess dynamics.
The key takeaway, relative to standard ways of thinking about collective action problems, is that it’s important to not only address specific or local problems, but to aim for actions that serve to augment the evolutionary fitness of cooperative individuals and organisations.
Efforts to shift culture towards social preferences can indeed be part of the solution, and the Moloch-v-Goddess framing points especially towards shifts in values and behaviours that allow individuals and organisations to outcompete their less social neighbours.
Likewise, efforts to change payoffs in particular areas through governance mechanisms that adjust rewards and penalties are especially desirable, on this framing, where these mechanisms themselves lend themselves to replication across the wider system, by increasing the fitness of the individuals and organisations being governed.
Actions of either of these two kinds could be framed as being on the side of the Goddess, against Moloch.
The Concept of Practical Implications: Strategic vs Tactical
It’s also worth making some points about the very concept of ‘practical implications’ here.
In evolutionary game theory, and theoretical biology more generally, it is common to distinguish highly simplified, general models, from those that are more detailed and specific to a particular environment[1].
And it’s also common to conclude that both kinds of models have their place.
While simple models don’t have the predictive accuracy of more detailed models, they have the advantage that one is able to peer through the black box and fully understand the dynamics, where these dynamics apply more approximately across a broad range of specific scenarios.
Both EPD and EH are extremely simple models - just like the non-evolutionary models of collective action problems normally associated with Moloch - but we shouldn’t hold that against them. While they’re certainly not precise representations of the actual world, they may still identify the approximate shape of very broad, global dynamics.
With regard to practical implications, simpler models like EPD and EH are said to be strategic, rather than tactical.
They lack the detail of specific environments that would be required when making tactical decisions around the governance structure of a specific AI lab, or a culture-change initiative in a specific government department.
But they do provide a strategic framework for understanding such decisions: for example, whether they are likely to have a wider systemic impact because they are replicable, as opposed to ‘winning the battle but losing the war[2].
Closing thoughts
The strategic/tactical distinction is really a matter of degree: while EPD and EH are more complex than the standard prisoner’s dilemma, they are still less detailed than other models within evolutionary game theory that would still be considered strategic rather than tactical.
This suggests an interesting range of questions about how the EPD and EH models could be made more detailed, while still retaining the generality of a strategic model - as well as the question of whether and how they can be developed into fully tactical models.
In particular, from a modelling perspective, there’s one fairly obvious weakness of the Moloch vs the Goddess framing we’ve explored so far, which is that it involves two entirely separate models - meaning it says effectively nothing about how these two dynamics interact.
And from a mythopoetic perspective, this makes the resulting worldview ultimately dualistic or Manichaean in its vision of two warring deities.
There’s a certain attraction to this worldview. There’s an acceptance of the power of both light and darkness, and a refusal of the comforting idea of the inevitable victory of the Good.
But as a matter of ultimate existential meaning, it’s natural to want to understand, not just whose side we are on, but which side is winning. Are the odds ultimately stacked in favour of Moloch or the Goddess?
To answer these questions it is natural to look at the more detailed elaborations of EPD and similar models that have been explored in Evolutionary game theory in recent decades, and which can be seen as integrating Moloch and the Goddess into a single model. I’ll turn to these in my next post.
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Info sessions:
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Two-year postdoctoral positions at the Fields Institute in Toronto, joint with PrincInt. Research focuses on mathematical foundations for AI interpretability: mean field theories of deep learning, data attribution, renormalization group approaches to neural networks, geometric analysis of learning landscapes.
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