Author: smartistone

On the hierarchy of intelligence or difficulty/rigor, ‘wordcels’ are ranked too low. And data/AI people are ranked too high. Although STEM and practical-minded stuff (e.g. business) are often positioned higher on the ‘intellectual totem pole’ compared to the ‘soft and subjective humanities’, my evidence shows it’s not so clear cut. With the exception of the… Continue reading ‘Wordcels’ are ranked too low

I saw this going viral: Are the girlies just all blitzed out of their minds on the reg? I had no idea pic.twitter.com/SFNvciyI3l — Rota (@pli_cachete) May 3, 2025 People are overly inclined to overestimate the claimed physiological effects of caffeine. Its reputation as a stimulant is way overblown. As I discuss earlier, when people… Continue reading Caffeine’s reputation as a stimulant is overblown

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I saw this tweet going viral How are rising mathematicians and physicists coping with the imminent advancements in AI? I have personally met folks who are working on integrating LLMs with proof verification languages (such as Lean) that project under a 2 year time horizon before LLMs can generate proofs and… — sarah (@Saraht0n1n) March… Continue reading It’s time to give the AI doomsaying a rest

WordPress is not displaying new posts anymore, so read the latest post here: It’s time to give the AI doomsaying a rest This page will continue to be updated with new posts —————————————————— How America Thrives Despite Blank Slate I saw this going viral: When I was in high school, there was a guy one… Continue reading WordPress Update

The Red Queen race or parable describes how, “Species have to ‘run’ or evolve in order to stay in the same place, or else go extinct as the Red Queen said to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass in her explanation of the nature of Looking-Glass Land: Now, here, you see, it takes all… Continue reading Math competition prep is a ‘red queen’ race

Looks like I was right yet again about the tariffs. On April 9th I wrote: It looks like I was right to buy the dip, having done so Monday morning on FNGA. Here is what I said: “I have begun buying leveraged tech stocks on the dip this morning to take advantage of this great… Continue reading Stocks recover all ‘Liberation Day’ losses

From a comment on Scott’s blog post, Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know: I moved for a while to a central European country and was impressed with the criminal justice system and the low level of crime/high level of compliance, despite the high amount of migration. The biggest thing I noticed… Continue reading Why UK/European-style policing would not work in the US

I saw this post by Moldbug, “Harvard to the Finland Station.” The author sees Trump’s ultimatum to Harvard as a segue or opportunity to reform the institution. I see zero possibly of this happening, sorry to say. He writes: As a longstanding critic of that ancient institution, I want to critique the Trump administration’s letter… Continue reading There is no ‘Harvard reform’ moment

I saw this article by Auron MacIntyre defending the tariffs, “‘I, Pencil’ defined free trade — Trump’s tariffs are writing the sequel.” Even though I broadly agree with the author’s politics, this article is pretty bad. He begins by likening the exploding Hezbollah walkie talkies to America’s reliance on Chinese imports for defense: A shocking… Continue reading Tariffs will hurt regular people, not elites