Constraint consequentialists believe that you should try to do good things that improve the world, unless those break hard-and-fast rules ("deontological bars").

For example, you shouldn't assassinate democratically-elected leaders, even very bad ones. Why not? Since bad leaders set bad policy, and bad policy can kill many thousands of people, wouldn't it be for the greater good? Because there's always one gun-owner who thinks any given leader's policies are bad, so without the rule, every leader would face constant assassination attempts, probably some of them would succeed, and the nation would either crumble or degenerate into a security state.

This explanation combines two sub-explanations. In the first, you are wrong about whether assassinating the leader would produce good consequences - you think it would, but actually it would produce instability, tyranny, etc. In the second, you're right - maybe you're a brilliant forecaster who can see that this particular assassination would end with an orderly succession by a superior ruler. But you know that there are far more people who think they are such brilliant forecasters than who actually are, and you either use the Outside View to suspect that you are also deceiving yourself, or at least realize that the only stable bright-line equilibrium is for everyone - true brilliant forecasters and wannabes alike - to refuse to act upon their apparent foreknowledge.

"Don't kill people" is a gimme. What other deontological bars constrain our actions?

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/what-deontological-bars

As a blogger, I hear about lots of projects to "solve debate", or "disagree better", or "map arguments". Often these are ACX grant applications. I always turn them down. They're well-intentioned, sophisticated, and doomed.

I appreciate that Internet arguments usually don't go well, that there are lots of ways to improve them, and that this is a worthy cause. But I've also seen a dozen projects of this sort fail. Here's why I think yours will too:

"Debate" almost never corresponds to mappable arguments. The simplest "solve debate" proposal is the argument map. Some technology helps people decompose arguments into premises and conclusions, then lets skeptics point out where the premises are wrong, or where the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

But almost no real argument works that way.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-attempt-to-solve-debate-will

[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can't guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-april-2026

This month, rationalist institution Lighthaven is running their second Inkhaven, a bootcamp for aspiring bloggers. Participants have to publish a post a day, or they get kicked out. You can read their posts here.

I'm too old to manage that pace, but agreed to participate as an advisor. Then I missed the first half of the month because I was on a trip. As compensation, here are fifteen pieces of writing advice for the fifteen days I was absent.

1: Against microdishonesty

Sasha Chapin has a piece If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe Stop Lying To Yourself. Maybe lying gives Sasha writer's block, but for my last set of mentees it more often just made things sound awkward and unclear. The English language hates the slightest whiff of dishonesty, even levels so small you wouldn't naturally notice them yourself. It punishes you by making your writing worse.

I remember asking one of my mentees to take out a tangential paragraph that didn't really connect to the rest of the argument. They refused, and awkwardly admitted that it was the one thing they really wanted to say with the essay. They'd written the essay about something else, because the other thing was more presentable. Then they'd smuggled their actual point in as a payload. Clever plan, but your readers will notice.

There are countless reasons to lie when you're writing. Maybe you thought of a really clever introduction, but the thing it introduces is 5% different from the thing you really want to say, so you need to be a little vague and smush them together. Maybe you have a really great perspective on something which is almost like the topic du jour, and you need to make it sound like it's exactly the topic du jour to get it published. Maybe you can rebut 99 out of 100 arguments for some stupid evil position that you want to debunk, but it would be embarrassing to leave one hanging, so you smudge it together into the other 99 arguments. English will punish you for all these things. Sometimes there's no better solution and you have to settle, but your readers will notice.

Viktor Orban, __________ of Hungary for sixteen years, lost his re-election bid earlier this week.

The simplest phrase to put in the blank is "prime minister". Some people have proposed more loaded terms like "strongman", "autocrat", and "dictator". But he did lose his re-election bid earlier this week, prompting comments that these more loaded terms, especially the d-word, might have been hyperbolic.

SUPPORTER: America needs to start talking to China to come up with a bilateral agreement to pause AI. The agreement would need to be transparent, mutually enforceable, and…

OPPONENT: We can't unilaterally pause AI! China would destroy us!

SUPPORTER: As I said, we need to start negotiating a bilateral agreement so that both sides will…

OPPONENT: You fool! Don't you know that while we unilaterally pause AI, China will be racing ahead and using their lead to erode our fundamental rights and freedoms? How could you be so naive!

SUPPORTER: Look, I promise this is about negotiating for a mutual pause. We don't think a unilateral pause would work any more than you would. But we think that if we negotiate…

OPPONENT: And while we unilaterally pause, do you think China will just be twiddling their thumbs, doing nothing? Obviously not! This is about ceding the future to our rivals!

SUPPORTER: I get the feeling you're not listening to me.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/every-debate-on-pausing-ai

I.

John Rawls was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 21, 1921. Not John Rawls the famous liberal philosopher (or, rather, John Rawls the famous liberal philosopher was also born in Baltimore, Maryland on February 21, 1921, but he is not the subject of our story). This is John Rawls the alcoholic.

John Rawls the alcoholic was twelve when they lifted Prohibition. He partook immediately, and dropped out of school the following year, supporting himself through a combination of odd jobs, petty crime, and handouts. When he was 41, he committed a not-so-petty crime - killing a man in a bar fight. Although he fled the scene and escaped without consequences, it turned him paranoid. Odd jobs and petty crime were both young men's games, and the handouts became an ever-larger share of his income. He learned to play the field, peddling the same sob story to the Salvation Army on Monday Wednesday Friday, the YMCA Tuesday and Thursday, and the local churches on weekends. He expected to drink himself to death by age 60, and there wasn't much to do but wait out the clock.

But as he entered his early fifties, the handouts started to dry up. The Salvation Army closed shop, the YMCA pivoted to physical fitness, and even the churches were no longer as charitable as before. One day he ran into a man he'd once seen volunteering at Salvation Army, and asked him what had happened.

"You haven't heard?" asked the volunteer. "None of the rich people donate to us anymore. They're all giving to this group called the John Rawls Foundation. If you're in trouble, you should talk to them. They're swimming in money!"

This naturally interested John Rawls the alcoholic, so he obtained their address from the volunteer and immediately headed over to their office building. He was met by a psychologist, who introduced himself as John Rawls ("Not the one the foundation is named after, just a funny coincidence, haha!")

John Rawls Psychologist told John Rawls Alcoholic that their foundation would be happy to help, but that he would have to get through a screening process first. The screening process would involve being administered a certain experimental drug and led through a hypnotic induction. The social worker would record his answers, and, if he passed the test, he would receive a monthly stipend that far exceeded the sum of his previous Salvation Army, YMCA, and church handouts. "Like a truth serum?" asked John Rawls Alcoholic. "Sure, let's say like a truth serum," said John Rawls Psychologist. "When will the screening process be?" asked John Rawls Alcoholic. "How about immediately?" asked John Rawls Psychologist.

So John Rawls Alcoholic found himself lying on a bed in what looked like a medical examination room, as John Rawls Psychologist shone a piercing light into his eye.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/being-john-rawls