some links

Predictive drawing with neural networks
This is one of these things that I saw once and can't seem to find the exact same gif. It was like, you'd be drawing, and it'd be showing you the most likely continuations of the current line you're drawing.
Anyway, this predictive-drawing is a really useful idea I've had reason to reference; I wish it had a simple name.
One application: sometimes in conversations, when people are not very direct, you have to do this kind of "predictive drawing" in your mind to fill in what they're saying. Like if you're in a work meeting and someone says "I don't know if this is the best thing to do here," it becomes all of the following:
- I don't want to do this
- I would like to do it, but I honestly don't know if it's the best thing to do
- I kinda want to do this, but I'm expressing hesitation because I don't want responsibility for decision making
- I actually can't do this because of some secret political thing that would be impolite to bring up
etc.

The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy - Yes! Remember: inequality is because of the 0.1%, and you, you fellow 9.9%er, you are not them. You are not going to become them. You will not get ahead by sucking up to them. The 90% are your people.
Also this thread. Especially: "(So if you want my take on living up to democracy, it does require acting as if ordinary people are not dumb. They are not. They are constrained. There is a difference. It matters.)"
Again, Fox News is at least one big part of the problem; if there's an industry (created by the 0.1%) telling the 90% how much the 9.9% looks down on them... well, it's not going to help anything.

How to have meetings well, in lots of detail. I mostly agree with this - there's bits I'd quibble on, but it does seem a lot more mature than the strategy I learned at Google, which was "basically you should never have meetings."
(this is hyperbole; google was somewhat smarter than this and continues to get smarter probably, but that's how I compressed this into my mind)

I started using Duckduckgo ("The search engine that doesn't track you") a couple years ago, kinda on a whim. It's totally great; I probably get bad results and then try google, like, 1 in 100 times. (and google fails sometimes then too!) You might as well use Duckduckgo too. An easy way to do so, it seems, is to get their new browser extension.

CA voting, part 2

(here's part 1)

Hard to find guides for CA-wide races! Here's the Chronicle. Here's one from Planned Parenthood. Here's the SF League of Pissed-off Voters for the "progressive" vote; useful because when even they endorse moderate candidates, like Padilla and Yee, that seems good.

Governor: I think Villaraigosa here, because it's a top-2 primary. Newsom is going to win first (and I'm planning to vote for him in the real election), but Villaraigosa and republican Cox are in a close race for second, and I'd rather have Villaraigosa than Cox.
Lieutenant Governor: doesn't matter much. Ed Hernandez seems fine.
Secretary of State: Padilla
Controller: Yee
Treasurer: Ma
Attorney General: Becerra

Insurance commissioner: (shrug) Lara I guess
Board of Equalization member: Not voting
US Senate: De Leon, as he's farther left than Feinstein. Hate to be ageist, but... Feinstein's policies were built in an age of Reagan and Bush 1. This feels about right.
US Rep, District 12: Shahid Buttar. Again, top-2, so obv Pelosi will win #1 but who do we want to win #2? I've seen ads for Jaffe, but... construction moratorium and no congestion pricing -> nope. Similarly with Khojasteh: "the US is in the midst of a housing crisis driven not by lack of supply but by surplus of greed" - no! that is exactly the opposite of what is true! Buttar is at least not as wrong.
State Assembly Member, District 17: Chiu's been good, let's keep him.
Judge, office 4: Cheng (background for these 4 judge races)
Judge, office 7: Karnow
Judge, office 9: Lee
Judge, office 11: Ross
Superintendent: Thurmond

Mayor: see also part 1; in short: Breed.
District 8: I'm kinda undecided now. (Chronicle editorial.) When a "moderate" organization endorses a "progressive" candidate, that sounds good. And Mandelman's really putting in the effort, while Sheehy's kinda not. But ... Mandelman's "solution" to the housing crisis is "more rent control"? Well, plus "more affordable housing", which we all want of course, but his policies might make harder to build. Ehh. Doesn't really matter; we're going to rehash this one in November anyway.

State ballot propositions: turns out these are easy. (more info)
68: Yes
69: Yes
70: No
71: Yes
72: Yes
Regional prop 3: Yes!
City and county props: see my part 1 (in short: yes on ABDEFG, no on CHI). I changed my mind to vote in favor of E just to spite the tobacco companies who have sent me so many mailers against it.

what are your feelings axioms?

Having feelings is hard. Making decisions is hard because having feelings is hard. Reasoning in ways that will be good to your future feelings seems hard.

But a lot of our feelings are pretty reducible to other feelings. It feels possible (and would be great) if you could reduce all your feelings to a set of axioms or values or something.

Here's my attempt for mine:

1. Universal kindness. I think a good measure of this is: do you act like everyone is exactly as much of a human as you? This is basically the Golden Rule.

2. Logic. I hesitate to include this because it seems like it could be co-opted to just mean "be a weirdo robot Spock who devalues feelings and stuff", but I'm not sure how else to say it. You've got to be committed to seeking truth, avoiding cognitive biases, and being epistemically humble.

3. Curiosity. I think you should keep looking for new things you like, or delving deeper into the things you already do like.

4. Self-motivation. Plus points if you do things that you like! Minus points if you force yourself to do things. Another way to think about this is moving through the world somewhat easily and calmly, not fighting everything all the time.

5. Health. Physical, mental, emotional, social.

If I'm correct, this list encompasses everything I believe pretty well! But I'll be looking for examples of what I believe that is not entailed here.

San Francisco Voting in June

I mostly follow these, from SF Yimby.
I also try to follow these, from SPUR.
The SF Bike Coalition is mildly important to me.
And if I hear anything Scott Wiener endorses, I'm inclined to vote for that as well.

Ultimately, we're in a housing crisis here, and we have to build a million billion units of housing starting 30 years ago. This is the thing that colors my votes more than anything else. I'd say I'm a single-issue voter, but housing affects almost everything else; the housing debate IS the gentrification debate, the homelessness debate, the transportation debate.

As a result, I fall right in line with the YIMBY faction. SB 35 is great and already making housing work; SB 827 would have been awesome, and the only things I hear against "build more" are of the following forms:
1. "Let's not displace people (esp poor and nonwhite ppl) who are here now." I agree with this! That's an important concern. And seems like we can work that out while also building more. SB 827, for example, added a bunch of tenant protections after discussing with people who might get displaced. If you want to talk about displacement a lot, but not build more, then I have to assume you're "bootlegger and baptist"ing - saying you support X for "good" reason Y, but you actually have self-interested reason Z.
2. "I don't want things to change." This has 2 forms:
2a. "I want SF to still be a cool artsy funky hippie whatever alternative place like it used to be." Well, uh, it's not 1967. And in the words of the wise sage Geddy Lee, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." By not building more, we ensure that things will continue changing in the way they are now, and SF will be even richer and whiter and more boring.
2b. "I want SF to be precious Victorian houses, not Manhattan." I mean... I get that, but I just think it's way less valuable than the alternative. When it's "I like Victorian houses" vs. "SF is a homelessness war zone that you can only afford if you make over $100k, and barely then", scrap the Victorians.

How I'm voting, as of now, assuming I hear nothing else. Numbers indicate how much I care about each, on a scale of 1-10, where 1 means "I barely care enough to check a box on this or I'm very unsure about it" and 10 means "this is the most important thing ever"
Mayor: Breed, then Leno, 8
Rep: Sheehy 5
Regional Prop 3: Yes 8 (tax bridges, fund transit)
City propositions:
A. Yes 5 (utilities bonds)
B. Yes 3
C. No 1
D. Yes 5 (C and D are kind of a bummer; I'd take $70m for housing before $140k for childcare, but... it's not an easy choice.)
E. No 1 (Did somebody say, grape blunt?)
F. Yes 8 (legal representation if you're getting evicted)
G. Yes 8 (tax for teachers)
H. No 9 (Tasers)
I. No 1 - even though I support it in principle, saying "we shouldn't court sports teams" doesn't actually do anything.

There's still a lot to do, mostly at the state level, so I'll probably post again about those when I figure them out. Anyway... /r/changemyview.