Was googling around how the NYT list works and this seems relevant [1]:

In addition, you can't just sell 10,000 books on Amazon to people in one city, state, or region. The New York Times requires that book sales must be spread across America using multiple retailers, including Amazon, B&N bookstores, Books-a-Million, independent bookstores, etc. Sales must be dispersed, rather than concentrated at one place.

My biggest concern betting this down was that there are probably enough rationalists to buy a lot of these. But, they are probably overwhelmingly in the SF Bay Area.

[1] https://www.startawildfire.com/insiders-guide-become-new-york-times-bestseller#pp-toc-611158acc0a82-anchor-1

@pietrokc also, how many rationalists are there?

@MachiNi According to that same site, you only need 10k sales on the first week to qualify, and I'm pretty sure there's at least twice as many rationalists. Maybe even 100k? I'd be surprised if there were 1M though.

@pietrokc 🤷🏻‍♂️

feel like people are underrating how easy it is to make it on the bestseller list here

@gold did you look at base rates?

I have 1000 bucks on "NO". I so damn hope to loose them.

@So8res 👀

Just hedging, don't mind me :3

I’d love to be wrong but I don’t think it’s a topic popular enough to become a bestseller.

@MartinZokov well, some books on the topic have become bestsellers, so the issue is not the topic.

I’m still puzzled. What makes people think this is so much likelier than base rates (yes, even accounting for topic and publisher)? Rough estimates suggest base rates in the low two digits. Of course, this one could be different! But why?

@MachiNi Familiarity bias amongst Manifold's userbase

@MachiNi coordinated effort by rationalists to manipulate the bestseller list

@nikki everybody knows Barnes and Noble customers are eager to hear what the rationalists recommend!

@MachiNi Both Superintelligence and What We Owe The Future were NYT best sellers (others I'd say were in this books reference class that were not are Human Compatible and The Precipice).

Rats are cute! And smart! 🐀

@RobertCousineau I’m honestly struggling to construct a good reference class. AI risk nonfiction is too narrow to make meaningful inferences. AI broadly construed is too loose. For every Superintelligence and WWOTF there are probably at least twice as many comparable books that don’t become bestsellers.

Buying some "No" here seems like a good idea on the basis that, imo, Manifold tends to be overly 'bullish' on Yudkowsky. That being said, given the hook title and the topic being AI, if anyone sees it, they'll (probably) pick it up.

@vitamind

if anyone sees it, they'll (probably) pick it up

Why?

@vitamind I actually think AI will probably be a boring topic by September since gpt5 will likely be a boring release.