(2024-06-25) ZviM Monthly Roundup #19 June2024

Zvi Mowshowitz: Monthly Roundup #19: June 2024. Yes, the non-AI world still exists.

Bad Governor

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has gone rogue and betrayed New York City, also humanity, declaring a halt to congestion pricing a month before it was to go into effect

The good news is Hochul’s attempt to prevent this seems likely to be illegal, so maybe it won’t stop us.

High Skilled Immigration

Trump endorsed high skill immigration explicitly on the All-In podcast.

Yet Trump’s track record is of course very different. Remember Trump’s H-1B Visa suspension in 2020?

So I wrote I was not optimistic about Trump following through, and indeed he has already ‘walked this back.’

The issue is any foreign college graduate, even from a bogus two-year master’s program or gender studies [major], would get a green card.

Various Bad News

Women, the young and the left leaning in academia are more censorious than their counterparts, and more likely to discourage various forms of research. Cory Clark reports about 10 ‘taboo claims.’

So of course Robin Hanson offered polls on these so-called taboo topics. The ‘controversial’ positions got overwhelming support

Three were roughly 90%-1%. I realize Hanson has unusual followers, but the ‘taboo questions’ academics want to discuss? People largely agree on the answers, and the academics have decided saying that answer out loud is not permitted.

Prediction Markets Are Unpopular

Prediction markets are unpopular. Sure, lots of people in my circles love them and want there to be more of them, but activity is limited even when you get them, and usually focused on stuff not that interesting. The basic thesis here from Nick Whitaker is that without subsidies no one wants to trade, so you need subsidy in the form of either cash, natural hedgers or suckers at the table, and usually you have none of them

Why do we see the same few markets over and over? It is not because those are the only interesting questions. It is because those are the questions we can quantify. If you cannot quantify, you get endless tsoris, and can’t play for real amounts

New Buildings are Ugly

Modern buildings (modern architecture) are ugly. We made that decision. We woke up, time and again, and we chose ugly. I do not understand how anyone fell for this, but a lot of people did. The cost argument does not check out. I know people actually prefer nice things in practice.

I would offer two other explanations not listed there

Vetocracy and permitting and regulatory requirements including zoning. If you have to struggle to get permission for every detail of what you try to build, and anyone can say no, are you going to risk delays or refusals in order to create something not ugly?

Externalities. When you create something beautiful, the whole world wins. When it is ugly, the whole world suffers. You do get the brunt of both, but a small fraction of the overall effect. It is only somewhat priced in.

Government Working

In potentially a big practical deal, the courts have now ruled that CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act, their version of NEPA) should no longer be construed to give the ‘fullest possible protection,’ a formula that means no one ever does almost anything, and instead treat it as one would an ordinary law. Maybe we can build some things now

Kelsey Piper: Fun fact, the FAA reviews this periodically and always concludes that, by raising the cost of flying and making more people drive (automobile), it would likely increase child deaths. This is my literal favorite fact about any regulatory body and I cannot shut up about it because so many regulations are written with willful obliviousness to the harms done by making things more expensive and annoying.

California rules on wages and fees continue to take their toll on restaurants. The costs add up. I do not however have sympathy for those complaining they will have to bake the fees into menu prices. That seems great. Yes, there will be initial sticker shock, but this puts everyone on a level playing field. In general, the game of ‘everyone is forced to hide the true price’ is a great place for intervention

Why did it take 10 years to open a Trader Joe’s in Hayes Valley (San Francisco)? For years they wouldn’t let anyone open a ‘chain grocery store’ anywhere pink on this map

The Snafu Principle

A big advantage and also big danger of becoming rich and powerful is people get afraid to tell you no. In some contexts, that is great, you get what you want and you can motivate people to do things. When flying in bad weather, not so much.

Kelsey Piper: There are several famous plane crashes that killed presidents where foul play was strongly expected and the ultimate explanation was crew inexperience and a terror of telling the President that what he wanted them to do was ill advised

For Science!

If it had ended here it would have been purely for the popcorn: A conversation between Yann LeCun and Elon Musk, part one. Then… well…

After a highly justified roasting all around, Yann quickly retreated back to the Motte, which is far more reasonable.

These are very different statements. No, the first statement did not say ‘all you have to do is put it up on ArXiv.org.’ I love this illustration of the classic two step, the flip between science and Science™. The difference between ‘you have to tell people about your discovery or they won’t know about it’ and ‘if your statement hasn’t gone through proper peer review in the official channels then I can act as if it isn’t real.’

Similarly, here’s that quote from Katalin Kariko’s book, Breaking Through. She still got mRNA vaccines to happen despite being driven out of her position for trying, and this thread from St. Rev Dr. Sev explains that weirdoes like her who think science should be about doing actual science are not to be tolerated going forward by those who only know Science™.

((Kariko revolutionized her field in the teeth of people like this, and they will never forgive her, and they will fucking destroy the next Kariko they get their hands on.**

An unspoken conspiracy of mediocrity.

Actual progress threatens to disrupt a lab’s business model. Can’t have that.

But when everyone’s a fucking high-agreeability pod person, you don’t filter the trash once it’s clear that it’s trash. That would be unmutual, it would interfere with the flow of grant money.

proposed by Ruxandra Teslo this law, after explaining that failed corporatists are forcing the weird nerds out of academia: Any system that is not explicitly pro-Weird Nerd will turn anti-Weird Nerd pretty quickly. Most would-be Karikos, including the ones who are not somewhat crazy, are driven out

Antisocial Media

TikTok gives different people completely different comment feeds on the same video.

You want more evidence TikTok is an enemy of America? It hates us so much it banned anyone who helped promote Ozempic, without warning, under the ‘Integrity and Authenticity’ policy, in particular the ‘might be helping Americans be better off’ clause.

The market only has a 33% chance that TikTok will actually get banned

The Twitter Porn Bot War

Patrick McKenzie sees them as a visible test of non-state capacity, similar to cleanliness at McDonalds

I Like My Twitter Posts Like I Like My Porn Bots: Private

Twitter made likes private.

The problem is that people have literally gotten into big trouble or been attacked out of context for merely liking the wrong Twitter post

Violet Blue: So now scammers and bots can artificially inflate post popularity and no one can verify if likes are from any real accounts. A gift to influence ops.

Variously Effective Altruism

Scott Alexander on the Far Out Initiative, a quest to abolish suffering by altering neurotypes rather than the usual proposed method of omnicide

I always view focus on suffering in general, especially when viewed as The Bad, as at great risk of asking the wrong question. Suffering is highly correlated with things sucking, and provides valuable information that things likely indeed suck and in exactly which locations and ways they suck. This is highly useful, both as information and motivation.

Are You Happy Now?

It’s fascinating how un-impacted this data series is by basically anything.

Because ‘lol nothing matters,’ to this extent, is not a plausible hypothesis.

My explanation is that this question is being answered in relative terms. You aren’t equally happy during a pandemic or financial crisis, but that is not the question being asked.

Good News, Everyone

Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement address at Duke was very good. So was his appearance on Honestly. It is fascinating how much more interesting I find Seinfeld when he is not on stage, compared to how he did when I saw him at the Beacon Theater.

Tyler Cowen recommends reading about a specific business you know a lot about already, or if that fails about the business of a sports team or musical group that resonates with you, as opposed to books in the ‘business section.’

Good Social Advice

A Twitter thread guide to hosting gatherings. This model says: Look for people who are interesting and are interested in others, never invite people because you feel obligated

I strongly endorse the Apartment Cluster: Five models of how to live near friends, from Cabin

Minihood is the classic version, potentially even easier, and the one that was pulled off in Berkeley. Again, exact proximity matters a lot. You want easy walkability.

Micro-village is often the dream. I have seen much talk of it over the years, but no one ever seems to get that close to pulling it off. Coordination is hard.

FTC Wants to Ban Noncompetes

While I Cannot Condone This

The SMBC theory that you should maximize the vector sum of your life and your work, which is why so many great artists, scientists and philosophers are ‘huge dickwads with tortured lives,’ they get little value out of life so they focused in on work and achieved greatness. This reminds us that for those with the talent the Great Work has highly increasing marginal returns. We would be better off if there were more people who went fully all-in on the Great Work. They should be rewarded and supported more, and (up to a point, but a high one) forgiven their personal trespasses.

Aella reminds us of a great rationality technique in such situations. When you see a claim or headline, ask what the world would look like if the claim was true.

Nick reports a third of women he is close to dream of opening beautiful bookstores with cafes, and Tokyo says doing things like that is awesome, so how can we make this easier? My presumption is they dream of doing this and also somehow being able to make a living and raise a family. Alas, the economics of bookstore cafes are not good, even if you solve for zoning and rent costs and get rid of a bunch of dumb regulations.

New movie ‘The Apprentice’ chronicles part of the rise of Donald Trump, well before his political adventures. Dan Snyder, former owner and abuser of the Washington Football Team, joined the Canadian, Irish and Danish government and others to help finance it because he thought it would be flattering, then turned around and fought its release (intended for this year ahead of the election) when it turned out to be attempting an accurate portrayal.

Enemies of the People

Anya Martin: I know it’s dunking on a dead horse but… if the fundamental issue is that people are too poor to have a nutritionally balanced diet, & a product is invented that makes a nutritionally balanced diet affordable & accessible, then that literally does address the fundamental issue.

Seth Burn: I think there has to be no limit of the dunking here. At this point Greenpeace is being actively evil, and that should be recognized as such.

Lab Grown Meat Shirts Answer and Raise Questions

Ban Gain of Function Research

Aidan O’Gara: Orders for 1918 Spanish Flu were sent to 38 DNA synthesis labs; 36 completed the order. Many of these labs had protocols for screening out hazardous orders, but simple methods circumvented the safeguards.

Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game

Sports Go Sports

I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars

Timothy Lee continues to point out that the Waymo ‘crashes’ include ‘another car made contact with a parked Waymo while travelling at 1 mph,’ while our information on the real progress of Tesla self-driving remains poor. Claims on Tesla are all over the place.

Patrick McKenzie Monthly

Pools that for decades have attracted young people who greatly overperform remain mostly ignored. Why aren’t law firms recruiting from college debate teams? DM Patrick McKenzie when you beat Factorio. If you see someone who will obviously found a company and likely succeed, tell them now that you will be investing.

Patrick McKenzie: Find ways to bet against the Efficient Institution Hypothesis. (“That is a large, well-resourced collection of smart people and THEREFORE evidence that they have made a mistake or missed an opportunity is likely a figment of your imagination.”)

The Lighter Side

New Liberals: “1 in 6 people can’t eat leftovers” is genuinely the funniest thing I think someone has ever said.