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LessWrong posts by zviAuthor: zvi
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“Monthly Roundup #37: December 2026” by Zvi
Friday, 12 December, 2025
I’m doing the Monthly Roundup early this month so that next week can be GPT-5.2 and affordability of life week, assuming we are not overtaken by other events. Ban Gain of Function Research The risk-reward profile of creating highly dangerous new viruses, supposedly in order to study them, is abysmal even when things are handled properly. Also, the actual practice of it is completely utterly insane. This below is the kind of thing that could very easily cause a global pandemic vastly worse than Covid, or even end civilization, and it was done in a BSL-2 laboratory, and no one has been arrested for it. People need to be arrested for this. Ideally heads need to end up on pikes until it stops. Maarten De Cock: A new gain of function study created chimeric coronaviruses that can infect human cells and kill mice (up to 100% mortality). ”The viral infection [and all animal experiments] were performed in a BSL-2 laboratory”(!) *The authors thank a.o. Ben Hu & Zheng-Li Shi. In The Zone At current margins, zoning restrictions on home-based businesses are terrible and make everything worse. There of course [...] ---Outline:(00:22) Ban Gain of Function Research(01:33) In The Zone(02:07) A Price Is A Signal Wrapped In An Incentive(03:18) While I Cannot Condone This(04:56) The Gift Of Having A Gift To Give Away(05:33) Good News, Everyone(07:25) Paranoia, Paranoia(14:18) A Good Book(15:58) For Your Entertainment(17:35) And The Warner Sister Dot(19:30) Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game(21:39) Think Of The Children(25:16) Sports Go Sports(27:30) Antisocial Media(28:51) Government Working(33:34) Variously Effective Altruism(34:06) Party Time, Excellent(37:33) Waste, Fraud, Abuse But Mostly No One Looked(39:08) How You Do Anything --- First published: December 12th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9ggSAY5b8mTazGytS/monthly-roundup-37-december-2026 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
