LeroyRaz

I agree, how dull and uninspired. I'm very much with Paul Graham, who believes in the creation of wealth (as opposed to the extraction of money).

I feel like most hobbies are cheap or free:

- Reading (libraries)

- Exercising (e.g., running, hiking, swimming - depending on pool / beach access -, joining a group of friends who play basketball, etc...)

- Playing video games (e.g., buy Factorio and play if for years)

- Working on personal projects (e.g., writing, coding, etc...)

There are more expensive hobbies, but even then they can often be done cheaply, e.g., though climbing is generally pricey, some gyms are surprisingly cheap, etc...

This article is wonderfully written. However I feel it makes a conceptual conflation.

First it describes the Greek philosophies as being essentially self help. Following that logic it would seem stocisim is not a system of ethics at all, but rather a way of dealing with struggle. Given that characterization, it seems quite bizzare to complain that stocisim provides no moral impetus to help others (a bit like complaining that a hammer - as opposed to a shovel - is a poor tool to dig holes).

This doesn't seem a fair analogy. Elon Musk is not being paid by the government, as I understand.

The reason the manager flying around spending money to attend a downsizing meeting is gross is that the manager is spending company money (that could go to prevent downsizing).

To complete the analogy, you would need to be implying that Elon's personal money should be paid to fund federal services.

Your claim that good economicts "know there is no free lunch" is completely false, unsubstantiated and actively misleading.

Many impressive economists believe there are policies that could massively improve the worlds economy, but that implementating these policies is a coordination problem / hard to overcome lobbying / politically intractable, etc...

Radical Markets is great book on exactly this topic.

Protectionist polices can serve countries well. A lovely example is South Korea's entertainment industry (they prohibited displaying foreign cinema, and the resulting need to produce domestic cinema lead to them developing a strong and independent entertainment industry, examples: squid game, train to busan, etc...)

It looks to me like the countries in the pie charts are ones with protectionism (e.g., China), while you are seem to be implicitly advocating for the opposite...

I feel you must underestimate humans...

I don't this is a quaint or antiquated practice. Writing (preferably physically writing) and or typing long essay is extremely standard amoung certain Silicone Valley and Tech circles. Paul Graham is also one of its most vocal advocates.

The article makes many good points: basic science research is immensely valuable, and society gets enormous (outsized) returns on this investment.

However, I feel the implied argument: DOGE investigating science funding and talking about cuts is bad seems flimsy. The system of funding and incentives is pretty broken, and not only broken, but actively decaying, you can't increase your return by increasing the funding and a lot of the money is spent on actively harming science (e.g., funding bureaucracy, or unmeritoricatic ideology rather than science).

Isn't the elephant in the room the social sciences though?

Like a vast quantity of their research output is badly designed studies that don't replicate, and serve only to launder the authors ideology through a veneer of science. It honestly think that certain social sciences might have negative RoI, e.g., the famous one about Alpha Wolves (wolves don't form Alpha beta Beta hierarchies in the wild, they actually have family unit packs).

How does Julia compare to Python with Jax?

I just love pythons ease of use, and the few times I've tried Julia it has felt clanky in comparison, and then Jax just makes everything so amazingly fast.

I read him as implicitly opining on the "solving" of political or economic systems. In doing so, he is making a false analogy.

The analogy fails because the "solution" to a real world problem does not require solving the problem in a mathematical sense (i.e., fully tracing and analytically understanding the system) but rather intervening to make the problem go away.

For example, imagine your boss is harassing you. Terrance Tao says, ah, that is a complex system (two people interacting) as such we need a complex solution (a deep understanding of what lead to this occurrence, e.g., do you remind your boss of their unhappy childhood?) but the actual real world solution can be simple, e.g., change job.

I'm all for informing people. A lot of people (myself included) are generally pretty ignorant.

As to traffic light systems: I think they should be transparent, and linked to easy-to-verify information.

An example of a good food one is the UK: They have a traffic light system for various macros. For each of the chosen macros (fat, sugar, etc...) the symbol displays the macro amount along with an associated colour.

This system is great because it is a systematic and consist visualization of an objective fact (e.g., more than 20 grams of sugar is always red). While the consumer might be influenced by the colour, it is extremely clear what the colour means and they can make up their own mind (e.g., how much fat do I want to consume?)

An example of a bad one: Germany has a traffic light system for food too. But here it is just a colour (with no clarity as to how the colour/rating is calculated). The rating seems arbitrary and strange (for example smoked salmon gets a red rating, while a slice of pizza might get a yellow rating, etc...). The consumer has no insight into what the rating truly means and hast to either trust it, or ignore it.

I don't like the title. Complex dynamics often require simple solutions. E.g., a complex chaotic system can often be made simple by adding damping (a simple solution).

"No matter what you believe, I’m willing to bet you’ve been feeling a lot of outrage lately."

Is it true that most people are feeling lots of outrage? Why?

The vibe I get from the left is outrage. The vibe I get from the right is relief and happiness. And the vibe of the likely-majority (i.e., the non-political) is probably just a desire to get on with life.

I can see there being lots of anxiety (e.g., over AI, automation, China-US relations, etc...). But anxiety is different from outrage.

I wouldn't trust the guardian. Their misrepsetation of Depp v. Heard was appalling and revealed that they have extreme ideological biases.

You can potentially rely on friends or family members to source such information (e.g., only one member of the household really needs to be checking the local group, etc...)

I'm not making a statement about palantir. The words "democracy, freedom of speech and gender equality" refer to the core tenants of west values.

Almost all cultures consider themselves to be superlative.

The middle east considers itself the best. China consides itself the best. I have no problem with the west considering itself the best.

And, tbh, democracy, freedom of speech, and gender equality are pretty great values to endorse.

What you describe (doing basic market analysis) is pretty much unrelated to 'rationality.'

'Rationality' hasn't really made any meaningful contributions to human knowledge or thinking. The things you describe, are all products of scientists and statisticians, etc...

Bayesian statistics is not rationality. It is just Bayesian statistics... And it is mathematicians who should get the credit not less wrong!!

How is it scientific? What do you mean by scientific?! Do you mean logical?

I mean, isn't the problem that they actually aren't that smart or rational. They're just a group of people who've built their identity around believing themselves to be smart...

They're also not freethinkers. They're a community that demand huge adherence to their own norms.

I think astral codex ten did a survey recently and the majority of respondents were politically left

I have a very different view. I think quality takes effort, and unless you are extremely gifted, or extremely practiced as a writer (i.e., you've done it professionally for years) what you write as a first draft is probably terrible.

As such, if you actually want to produce text worth reading, you'll need to spend (a lot of) time editing and critiquing each draft you write.

I also think the world abounds with supposedly quirky people, who think that that is enough. It is (almost certainly) not enough.

Unless you are incredibly unusual and individualistic, your quirckyness is not sufficient to make your work worth reading. The problem is that there are lots of interesting, unusual and deep people, and some of them also spend a huge amount of time and effort on the craft of writing.

Personally, I love how Florida telivises it's court proceedings. I think it really strengthens the oversight and trust people can have in the judicial system.

A poorly conceived and generic article.

If he has a malignancy (if), it is greed not fear. And with that fact clear, the whole article makes no sense.

I'm consfused. Is this an indefinite or a very temporary thing?

The article says the move is part of a roughly 11 day pause in communication (till the first of Feb) but also describes the reviews as "suspended indefinitely"

"Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programmes and diversity-related grants from the agency’s site."

This take seems to project a massive amount (of negative falsehood) onto Paul Graham's essay. As I read his essay, Paul Graham does not care one wit about the gender (trans or otherwise) of an individual. He is explicitly criticising those who create arbitrary rules (e.g., the term LatinX) that don't actually serve society but instead serve as virtue signals.

If you are competent, you'll be able to find employment. Yes, discrimination exists, but if there is an abundance of talented trans people, someone is going to exploit that talent pool (by hiring) in an efficient market economy.

Frankly, the author seems a bit egotistical. Being transgender has nothing to do with being woke. People like Paul Graham criticising wokeness are not criticising transgenderism. His essay is not about you (and nobody reading his essay should interpret it in anyway as being against you).

Tiktok is obviously a massive national security risk, and I find it funny people don't see that.

It is extremely well established that propaganda has great value, and so allowing a foreign adversary the capacity to potentially control the information your citizens receive in a clandestine way is insanely dangerous.