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LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

By: LessWrong
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Audio narrations of LessWrong posts. Includes all curated posts and all posts with 125+ karma.

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© 2026 LessWrong (Curated & Popular) Hourly Philosophy Social Sciences
Episodes
  • "Surprising facts about the slave trade" by Joseph Miller

    "Surprising facts about the slave trade" by Joseph Miller
    Jun 26 2026
    1. The obstacle to abolition was not the economic system, but an industry lobby.

    I had always imagined the British abolitionist movement to be a broad battle between an unstoppable moral imperative and an immovable economic incentive. But in practice it started as more of a knife fight between a cabal of moral pioneers and a special interest group representing industry merchants.

    The government and the political parties did not come in with any great agenda. MPs were mostly prizes in a furious contest between the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and a coalition of business interests:

    "The merchants and planters availed themselves [...] to wait upon members of parliament by deputation, in order to solicit their attendance in their favour, and to renew their injurious paragraphs in the public papers."[1]

    "The committee, for the abolition, when the work was finished, printed it at their own expense [...] sent it to every individual member of that House."

    However, the public was heavily activated in favor of the abolition, which forced the issue to parliamentary attention.

    "The committee also in this interval brought out their famous print of the plan and section [...]

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    Outline:

    (00:10) 1. The obstacle to abolition was not the economic system, but an industry lobby.

    (02:40) 2. The slave trade was truly terrible for sailors.

    (04:25) 3. The slave trade made Africa scary and violent.

    (05:26) 4. The main argument against abolition was that if the British didn't do it, other countries would.

    (06:24) 5. The early abolitionists explicitly distanced themselves from emancipation.

    (07:11) 6. The slave trade may actually have been bad for the economy (at least after some date).

    (08:29) 7. The 1780s are not so different from today

    (09:39) 8. Thomas Clarkson is a hero for the ages

    The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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    First published:
    June 26th, 2026

    Source:
    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDZcsojmRXo5qKNBm/surprising-facts-about-the-slave-trade

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    Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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    13 mins
  • "AI catastrophe: more like a genocide than a thought experiment" by KatjaGrace

    "AI catastrophe: more like a genocide than a thought experiment" by KatjaGrace
    Jun 26 2026
    A notable fraction of people respond to hearing about existential risk from AI by saying they don’t really care if everyone dies. I think the idea is often along the lines of ‘well if we are all dead, then there's nobody to be unhappy about it’.

    I’m personally skeptical that this is really the main thing going on, since it seems unlikely that many people are really mostly concerned for their own non-death out of selfless regard for the feelings of others. I’m also skeptical that this would be their view on a bunch more consideration.

    So to help with the consideration—

    My guess is that an important thing going on here is that the ‘everyone dying at once’ image seems kind of like a thought experiment—abstract, hypothetical, neat, not very sinister. Also, you literally can never see it, so it feels pretty surreal.

    But it is interesting that we even have this assumption that everyone will die together.

    It's true that in some prominent AI catastrophe stories, a single AI system suddenly emerges fantastically more powerful than anyone else and builds technology to quickly kill everyone, perhaps before they notice.

    But this doesn’t seem like the bulk of [...]

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    First published:
    June 24th, 2026

    Source:
    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/23HybCsJ7KYW4v7tP/ai-catastrophe-more-like-a-genocide-than-a-thought

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    Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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    2 mins
  • "AI pause: the case for ASAP" by KatjaGrace

    "AI pause: the case for ASAP" by KatjaGrace
    Jun 25 2026
    I often hear people say they think we should pause AI at some point, but not yet. Their basis for this seems to be some combination of:

    • If we pause at the last possible moment, then we will have the most advanced AI possible during the pause, which will be helpful for doing AI safety research during the pause

    • Implicitly, there is some quantity of ‘pausing credit’, that will buy us a few months of pause say, and if we use them now, we won’t have them to use later, when it is important

    • If we pause, and then AI doesn’t seem to be at dire risk of destroying the world, maybe the public will backlash against this and it will be harder to do any kind of AI safety (especially if it has major economic consequences)

    • The models aren’t dangerous yet

    This all sounds very questionable to me. I suggest instead that the following are at least as likely to be true:

    • We can’t pause on a dime at the precise second that ‘we’ decide it is important to—pulling the breaks will take a while, during which time we will continue [...]

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    First published:
    June 24th, 2026

    Source:
    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mEhS4wYTy9JXEpe9p/ai-pause-the-case-for-asap

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    Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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    2 mins
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