techfeathers

Maybe seed oils are really bad, or maybe you just shouldn’t be eating so many fried foods for the type of fat to matter all that much.

This article does somewhat go into, but I think, unless something is outright toxic like lead, nutrition science will always be plagued by the number of confounding factors.

As the twitter link just links there.

But I still don't think this is quite answering the right question. Yes, it's amazing, and by many definitions of "creative" it may not matter. If you want to have a house filled with custom artwork in any style (maybe it has to be an existing style) then it may be a distinction without a difference.

But his test doesn't seem to me to actually answer the right question. It tells you that AI can create something indistinguishable from Monet or Basquiat, but can it convince people to care about new art?

The thing that really makes me curious about this is not that I necessarily think it can't but that there's a middle ground here. You have to create something novel that people are attracted to, and be able to market it. (I think AI can do this) but the space can't be so saturated nothing rises to the top.

I think there's this somewhat justifiably lazy narrative that if you have the truth on your side you're job will be easier, and so we excessively blame scientists for not adapting faster to this new landscape. The idea that if you can't communicate the truth well, you must be doing something really wrong, rather than failing to do something right. The linked blog post really changed my perspective in this area. It made this argument that basically if the average person, even the average earth science major tried to have a debate with a flat-earther. The flat-earther would destroy that person in a debate. Counter-intuitively it's not that flat-earthers are uninformed, many of them have a perversely in-depth knowledge of physics and earth science. Much deeper than the average person would consider having on a topic like the shape of the earth.

Edit, Found it: https://benthams.substack.com/p/conspiracy-theorists-arent-i...

I had a few friends who were COVID conspiracy theorists, and so many of the articles they sent me were hilariously bad. Alex Berenson published a blog post that pulled one graph from a 50 page document that showed some counter-intuitive correlation, but only if you ignored 1 bar on the chart that he cut off in picture he put in the blog post! (Not to mention ignoring the entire other 50 pages of the report)

But during a crisis you have to balance skepticism and doubt with the need to take decisive action. The fact that we seem to be focusing our blame on the scientific community, rather than politicians, is this magical judo that politicians have made. The scientists goal is to share the data and it's impacts, the politicians is to shape that data and impact into policy.

It’s interesting to read the banality of all the features Musk added, all in one place that were described in hushed breaths the way he was finally bringing life back to the platform and innovating.

But also, I probably am a liberal (maybe this is actually where the criticism comes from) but it seems like so many liberals want to sit on a hill and talk about the values of freedom while deferring implementation details or actual conflict resolution.

I remember listening to the Lex Friedman interview with the guy who founded FIRE. And he called himself a free speech absolutist, and I appreciated his commitment to that, and said Twitter was great as this public square, and in to me a sign of how out of touch he was said that as a good liberal educated engaged citizen of the world, one should read and carefully consider all Twitter responses you get.

Which is like bananas.

And it feels to me like the lack of engagement with the reality of human interaction and conflict, particularly that interaction on the internet with its low stakes and algorithmic interaction is a real blind spot to coherent free speech ideology.

Or is the goal the greater ideological idea / second order effect of limiting access to debt.

Also this seems at odds with the administrations new tech admirers who I assume like H1B workers for a variety of reasons.

I really don't. I know you mean this as an insult, but like, it gives this weird reverence to social media that I don't get. I am all sorts of interested in long form media that explores striking/dangerous/novel ideas that really expand my mind and help me to see the world in a whole new way, or interviews with people who have a set of beliefs that are different from mine.

I am not interested in 140 character hot takes that just pounce at my amygdala, just like I wouldn't want my Thursday night football game to cut away to a five minute diatribe on the pros and cons of abortion access, or my video games to lecture me on free market economics.

Engaging in as social network that isn't an echo chamber of my beliefs is like being interrupted every five minutes during dinner time to be yelled at by a different evangelist. Church is on Sunday, thanks.

My gut has been that during the next administration there's going to be a fire sale on regulation, and we're in for some type of major bubble popping due to de-regulation ala the savings and loan crisis or 2008, not to mention probably numerous health crises in our future from less trust in vaccines and less regulation by the FDA.

But like, one side is rarely right about everything, so the fact that we have to choose between two extremes sucks.

Also, and I’m not saying Ben and Marc are wrong here, but I would have a healthy dose of skepticism towards anyone who says “the really core problem with our world is that we’re not doing this thing that would benefit me personally”.

Maybe we need more startup innovation, or maybe that’s just the thing the person heavily invested in startup innovation thinks.

And I find it interesting he says a thousand Mozarts, because it seems to fall in the same fallacy the Dan Frank is talking about in this article.. Many people seem convinced that there's something about our society that is forstalling the creation of Mozart's and Einstein's not that the history of music and technology means that modern genius' are necessarily more niche than historical genius.

For instance, in Music, I think there's probably quite a few modern Mozart's -- Aphex Twin/Squarepusher, maybe someone like a Steve Reich or a John Luther Adams, there's probably a few in metal and hip hop and a variety of other Genre's. I like to joke that maybe Taylor Swift is a modern Mozart.

I think it's sad in a lot of ways how little recognition there is in experimentation and modernism. What would Jeff Bezos say about this? "Steve Reich is great, but he's no Mozart". Which I think leaves us in sort of a "No True Mozart" fallacy.

I guess both things can be true.

I suspect that the current era has a lot in common with the gilded age / age of steam and rail, and I wonder what it felt like to live at that time and how many outlandish promises their were.

I don’t know if there’s something particularly human about this feeling, but I would say my psychology is often that things will continue on and more so, when the reality is probably that we will shift to another kind of zeitgeist after some big event in the future.

"As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months."

Could be legit, or could just be a report that is filed away. I suspect that is the reason for an extra-governmental agency. If they do something good, great, if not, easy to fire them.

But I feel like there’s some missing model hear. Therapy is the wrong model for work, but we still need to work through difficult times, we need conflict resolution, we need authentic team building, and an understanding of how to have a retro discussion like the coo discussion he’s lamenting.

Like it seems interesting most 80’s/90’s free speech comedian / shock jocks still seem to be fundamentally liberal even though the younger generation of these are being turned conservative by the cultural environment.

I think it's very rational to choose "This person might benefit me and my community specifically" over "our policies are more sustainable for the whole nation in the long term."

I 100% do not think that all Trump supporter's are _blank_ I think most are good people concerned about their family / living situation / community etc.

But, in a liberal free speech environment, how do you get people to not get the message that "all white men have privilege", or "All Trump supporters are Nazi's". I'm not going to say liberals have no fault here, but the conservative media's fear mongering about say Trans People far exceeds the amount that democrat politicians talk about trans rights.

I don't think that even most liberal women believe that men are more dangerous than a bear, but man that message went viral as shit.

I don't disagree that Trump is as terrible as the Democrats say he is, (and I don't think that the campaigns had much to do with the result, "It's the economy stupid") but I do think that there are lot of concerning signs going forward. Democrats say they're the big tent party, there are whole sets of voices and ideas that get crowded out, such that I think there's a perception that a popular vision of the future is owned by Republicans.

I'm big into endurance sports, and primitive living, and rural life, and all these people are right coded. Like I would say the left has CottageCore and the right has TradWife, but there's so many activities/hobbies/visions of the future that get right coded these days, and I think that's a big thing the right is doing right. Like CottageCore is not nearly as left coded as TradWife is right coded, and I think that's true for a lot of lifestyle media these days.

I don't know what the solution is. But this whole election feels to me like a bait and switch. That the right is going to go a lot farther right than the people who voted for Trump want it to go. My gut is that the Trump/RFK Jr/Tulsi Gabbard old school Democrat / moderate Republican voices are going to get drowned out by a hardcore conservative agenda of repealing Obamacare, shrinking the welfare state, and banning abortion/gay marriage.

But I'm openminded. And if the new Republican party really is the voice of reason and normalcy and Blue Collar workers; I don't know if I'll vote for them in the next election, but it will dramatically shift my perspective on the state of American politics.