Month: July 2024

A few inches and Trump not momentarily turning his head to look away from the teleprompter, and history would have been forever changed. Audience members closest to the stage, perhaps distracted by their smartphones as the rally was starting, would have felt a mist and a sprinkle of fragments and looked up to the sound… Continue reading “…inches from Civil War”

Every day, investors are bombarded by forecasts and predictions by people who are held up as experts or who lay claim to expertise. This can include economists, CEOs, or analysts who work for major publicly-traded investment banks or smaller private firms, whose forecasts are disseminated by the financial media. It’s the only profession, AFIK, where… Continue reading Why Most Financial Analysis is Useless and can be Ignored

This segues to a debate about Elon Musk’s IQ , in which some took issue with my claim that although his IQ is likely nominally high, he’s not among the smartest people in the world, a position likely occupied by top pure mathematicians and theoretical physicists. People are apt to overestimate Elon Musk’s IQ owing… Continue reading Competence is not the same as IQ

I saw this article going massively viral, by Tracing Woodgrains: Reliable Sources: How Wikipedia Admin David Gerard Launders His Grudges Into the Public Record. There are two issues here: 1. The problem is not so much that Wikipedia is biased or has corrupt editors (this has been known for a very long time, and has… Continue reading Wikipedia’s Problem is its Popularity

Given the ongoing decline of the credibility of the Biden administration and post-debate implosion of his campaign, a second Trump term must be seriously entertained. Here is what I predict will happen: Similar to 2016-2020, Trump will not do much legislatively, save for tax cuts, which are an easy legislative win if the Republicans can… Continue reading A second Trump term: expect the economy to boom, and other predictions

AFIK, I was the first, in late 2021, to argue that leveraged tech is superior to Bitcoin and “this decade’s Bitcoin“, and that Bitcoin would severely lag tech stocks, while at the same time track the stock market on the downside. Fast-forward to 2024 and Bitcoin is dying as tech stocks surge, as I said… Continue reading Governments Continue to Dump Bitcoin as Price Crashes , Bitcoin Lags Tech Stocks

Interesting article: How Did Silicon Valley Turn into a Creepy Cult? I should have noticed when tech leaders started talking about attaining immortality and resettling on Mars. It’s easy to ignore crackpots like that, or pity them—because they live in delusion and still end up dead here on planet Earth. They talk a lot about… Continue reading How Did Silicon Valley Turn into a Creepy Cult?

Since we’re on the topic of IQ again, from Tracing Wood: chess plays an important role in keeping the rest of us honest Ethan Pang has been playing for four years. he is better at the game than you will ever be. if you quit your job and studied chess full-time for four years, you… Continue reading Child chess prodigies are likely high-IQ prodigies

There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes, and Bitcoin falling. Bitcoin continues to crash as predicted, breaching $57k on its eventful trajectory to $20k or lower. The divergence between Bitcoin and leveraged tech ETFs keeps widening, as predicted also: Earlier this year it looked like I was wrong, but then Bitcoin inexplicably collapsed as… Continue reading Bitcoin keeps falling as stocks keep going up

Every indicator points to the rise of a post-work, post-scarcity economy, such as forecasts of ‘hundreds of millions of jobs’ lost to AI, or discussions of 4-day workweeks, which have being tentatively tried with success. Famously workaholic Japan is pushing for 4-day workweeks due to labor shortages. Or some cities implementing small-scale UBI programs. Open… Continue reading The end of work, and the new post-scarcity