I sent some delusional emails to Eliezer Yudkowsky (Subjects: "positive reinforcement! But, updating away from you and towards Paul Christiano and Michael Vassar (eom)" and "You and Greg Egan had that public fight on Baez's blog! Was that staged on purpose? If not, you should update towards Egan (eom)"), and some probably nice and non-concerning emails to each of my parents (Subjects: "You've been a good [mother/father] to me in ways that I didn't always understand at the time (eom)")
-At 1:17 _p.m._, I sent my boss an email saying that I was thinking of taking a sabbatical—leaving the company to persue another project (_i.e._, this blog)—but that I'd like to talk to him as soon as possible to think about the decision together. Without waiting for a reply, I got on a train to San Francisco.
+At 1:17 _p.m._, I sent my boss an email saying that I was thinking of taking a sabbatical—leaving the company to persue another project (_i.e._, this blog)—but that I'd like to talk to him as soon as possible to think about the decision together. Without waiting too long for a reply, I soon got on a train to San Francisco.
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The first time I went insane from sleep deprivation, in 2013, I remember having a distinct mental sensation where two words kept running through my head, over and over. That time, the words had been "science" and "female." Maybe a Society with a more advanced discipline of psychiatry would be able to pinpoint the nature and origin of this symptom more exactly, but I suspect it might be a real regularity, because around this time, it started happening to me again. This time, the words were "cooperate" and "defect".
-I wandered around downtown San Francisco, and used my phone to repeatedly message the word "Cooperate" to various people—to "Chaya" (six times), to Ben (five times), to "Noreen" (six times), to "Wilhelm" (twice), to my insufficiently requited love "Beatrice" (five times), to Ziz (six times), to Brent Dill (five times) ... a few other people. (I was imagining the act of saying or sending the word being analogous to playing cooperate in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma; it didn't occur to me that it could also be interpreted as a command.)
+I wandered around downtown San Francisco, and used my phone to repeatedly message the word "Cooperate" to various people—to "Chaya" (six times), to Ben (five times), to "Noreen" (six times), to "Wilhelm" (twice), to my insufficiently requited love "Beatrice" (five times), to Ziz (six times), to Brent Dill (five times) ... a few other people. (I was imagining the act of saying or sending the word constituting an act of playing cooperate in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma; it didn't occur to me that it could also be interpreted as a command.)
-[TODO: review "Chaya" messages and timestamps
-I'm on a trip and I don't want it to be a bad trip (15:39:48)
-She asked me to clarify whether I meant I was on psychadelics, or had gone to Portland. "I don't think I took acid", I said. (15:44:42)
-]
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-[TODO: review Ben messages and timestamps
+"I'm on a trip and I don't want it to be a bad trip", I told "Chaya" and Ben. "Chaya" asked me to clarify whether I meant I had taken acid, or gone to Portland. "I don't think I took acid", I said.
-(Feb 16 2017 15:51:32)
-I remember being afraid that the thing which (I had decided) had happened to Eliezer Yudkowsky and to Scott Alexander that made them such good writers was now happening to me, a phenomenon that would bring terrible suffering along with the awakening into genius. I messaged Ben, "I don't think I want to be the Avatar yet".
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-]
+I remember being afraid that the thing which (I had decided) had happened to Eliezer Yudkowsky and to Scott Alexander that made them such good writers was now happening to me, a phenomenon that would bring indescribable suffering along with an awakening into genius. I messaged Ben, "I don't think I want to be the Avatar yet".
-[TODO: review Ziz messages and timestamps]
+At 1:47 _p.m._, I had messaged Ziz, "humans aren't smart enough to be Kirutsugu; that's why I've chosen the confessor route"—a reference to Yudkowsky's story ["Three Worlds Collide"](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/qWoFR4ytMpQ5vw3FT), in which an alien rationalist trained for command is contrasted with their human counterpart, tasked only with telling the truth.
+[(I don't do policy.)](/2021/Sep/i-dont-do-policy/)
-Thu Feb 16 15:15:53 I message Ziz with "humans aren't smart enough to be Kirutsugu; that's why I've chosen the confessor route" / then "I need positive reinforcement" / "Cooperate" / "Cooperate"
-Ziz: Vassar was talking about you recently approvingly, having read your facebook wall. Something about a war between being able to think and gaslighting.
-Like he named you as one of three fronts the war is playing out on. Jack also seemed to agree. \"Sarah vs Ben, Rob vs Ben Todd, Zack Davis vs the world Thu Feb 16 2017 16:06:42 GMT-0800
+After I asked for "positive reinforcement" and sent some "Cooperate" messages at 3:15 _p.m._, Ziz responded with some heartwarming anecdotes about how others thought of me. She said that Michael Vassar had been talking approvingly about me, in the context of a war between gaslighting _vs._ having the ability to think, that I was one of the three fronts in "the community" that the war was playing out on: Sarah _vs._ Ben, Rob _vs._ Ben Todd, and Zack Davis _vs._ the world.
Eventually I made it to my office. My boss said he hadn't seen my email about wanting to meet.
+At this point, my memories aren't very clear or detailed. I think I said something that caused my coworkers to be very concerned for me, but I remember being very careful about the wording, to make sure I _wasn't_ saying one of the things that would give people cause to lock me up. I think it was something like, "I think I'm in the mental state that causes people to perform the verbal behavior of saying they want to commit suicide."
+In retrospect, I don't think people pay attention to such distinctions.
+A coworker volunteered to secure me a ride home. There was some question about whether the relevant "home" was my apartment in Berkeley, or the house in Walnut Creek where my mother lived, and where I had lived until just ten months before. As a newly awakened-social conservative, I intuited that staying with family was the right choice. (I was wrong.) At 6:22 _p.m._, I sent an email from my work computer to my parents, Anna, and Michael (Subject: "I want to go to my parents' house; do we still own the house? (eom)").
+We still owned the house. My coworker took an Uber with me to the house in Walnut Creek, and explained the situation to my mother.
+(Meanwhile, Ziz had made her way to my apartment. "Brought chocolate, allegedly good against dementors," she messaged at 5:43 _p.m._. "Believe I can cooperate better if I can see your face." I was apparently in no state to appreciate the gesture; I messaged back "OK" a couple times when she asked to be let in, and confirmed which address she was at, even though I wasn't there. My flatmate eventually arrived and let her in.)
-"I want to go to my parents' house; do we still own the house? (eom)" 16 February, 1822 (and that was the last email until the 21st because I was in the psych ward)
+[TODO— my recent madness
-Thu Feb 16 16:39:06 PST 2017: Ziz says, "Am still here. Brought chocolate, allegedly good against dementors. Believe I can cooperate better if I can see your face."
-Thu Feb 16 18:18:43 PST 2017: Ziz says "Watson returned. Am currently in ur house, using ur wifi. Are you coming here? Am unclear on your intent, but am happy to sit here and work on stupid resume padding stuff for a while if you're coming."
+ * I tried to sleep that night, but I was scared. Moldbug had said that everyone was lying about crime statistics; how did I know that I wouldn't be attacked by criminals in the night?
+ * (check if KP records corroborate this happening on 17 February) Mom taking me to Kaiser, me resisting, saying over and over again, "People are better at taking care of each other than institutions"; having quasi-religious visions of prying seeing AGP as a separate taxon, and negotiating to pry apart the concept
+ * I messaged "Chaya": I couldn't sleep because I was scared; I had built up a distinction between "social reality" and "physical reality" that got undermined (Fri Feb 17 14:32:50)
+ * I messaged Ben. I was so sorry; I wanted to be part of the coalition, but I was so confused, and I said Defect a bunch of times. I was scared that my boss (who was black) was going to kill me.
+ * He said he wouldn't ask a trading partner not to consider defecting; that would be silly—and pointed out that saying the word "defect" is like wearing black robes; it's not the same as the thing it represents. He pointed out that my boss was not personally coming to kill me. ("There's probably some symbolic truth to the worry but it might not resemble the literal content at all and is almost certainly not urgent on the order of hours")
+ * "I think I can get to my apartment" I said (14:42:35); "I just realized that you're allowed to not be submissive all the time" / "I didn't know this before and it feels like an impossible superpower"
+ * stopped by cops before entering the Walnut Creek BART station
+ * (Walnut Creek police must not have very much to do, that they responded to my mom's call so quickly?)
+ * when questioned by the cops, I said that I had been awake for a couple days. (That's not _normal_, they said.) I said, truthfully, that I wasn't on drugs, but I think I expected them to not believe me.
+ * last message to Ben: "You can use police cars as Ubers????"" (15:19:59)
+ * The thing about being institutionalized, is that it wouldn't be such an ordeal if it happened when you were well. Getting kidnapped by strangers, having to spend three days in a bad hotel and do some kindergarten-like activities, would be a mere inconvenience while well. But _while having a psychotic break_ is the _worst time_ to be kidnapped.
-Fri Feb 17 14:19, "I'm so confused I just woke up / I'm so sorry"
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-previous psych episode, repeating two words, Science and Female; but this time, it was Cooperate and Defect
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-to Ben: "I'm so sorry; I want to be part of the coalition but I'm so confused; and the fact that I was confused made me say Defect a bunch of time" Fri Feb 17 2017 14:23:53
+]
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/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/
[28 February, I email Blanchard/Bailey/Hsu/Lawrence]
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff