The Seattle EA and Seattle Eastside EA Meetup groups have a Discord server with mostly genuine conversations (peppered with shittakes for good measure). Today, @Joroth (Tim) and @RobertCousineau had an exchange about Longtermism and EA and its effects, spurred by some earlier chats about OpenAI Drama speculation.

In a sidebar, @Joroth mentioned he's been considering writing a piece about EA and Longtermism, joking that this conversation was helping to crystalize some ideas to include in that piece.

Tim shared his Substack link with me, saying he has only posted a couple of book reviews in the past. It turns out the reviews were in 2021 and 2022, meaning he's due for a 2023 entry to keep this (albeit seemingly accidental) yearly posting streak.

So here I am, commoditizing the outcome while encouraging him to write something new that I'd like to read:

Will Tim craft and publish a post before 2023 ends? I will resolve yes under obvious terms, including a post on a topic other than longtermism/EA as a post of any legitimacy will keep his streak.

I should add that Tim is wholly uninterested, I believe, in this "streak," which is something I noticed and decided to use as a basis for nudging him along. As Robert learned in recent months with his off-hand comment about being consensually waterboarded, I tend to enthusiastically encourage people to do things they want to do, even if it has absolutely no effect on me whatsoever. (why am I like this?)