Author: smartistone

Leave it to Scott Alexander to write the most epic Scott Adams obituary. Adding to the confusion, Scott Adams and Alexander share the same first name and initials, and I will leave it to the reader to infer which Scott I am referring to. Scott writes: But it would be insufficiently ambitious to stop there.… Continue reading Scott Alexander on Scott Adams

Yet again, the SCOTUS punted on the legality of Trump’s tarrifs. Polymarket is giving a 30% likelihood of a favorable ruling: “Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump’s tariffs?” This market will resolve to “Yes” if the Supreme Court of the United States issues a decision that reverses, vacates, or otherwise overturns the U.S. Court… Continue reading A tariff is not a tax

I saw the below tweet going massively viral, amassing 42k ‘likes’ in a day, surpassing competing high-stakes stories at the time, such as Venezuela. This indicates considerable interest in this topic. It's been reported that the average weight of a woman on SNAP benefits is 212 lbs. The average weight of a woman not on… Continue reading Obesity and SNAP: the overlooked IQ connection

Item #1: Excellent article by akarlin The Party’s Over: Many influencers are targeting $130,000-140,000 for Bitcoin and additional multiples for their favorite altcoins. I think that macro and the charts are bearish. After holding my Ethereum and other alts for two years, I will now disclose that I have sold most of my crypto portfolio… Continue reading The Daily View 1/12/2026: Bitcoin Party is Over, IQ Threshold Effects, ‘MAHA’ food guidelines

I saw this post going viral by Charles Murray about the high attrition rate of college math courses compared to the humanities: In a sufficiently advanced college math class, lots of the 130 IQ kids have to drop out because they just can't learn the material whereas almost all the 140 kids can. In a… Continue reading Math vs Writing: difficulty and threshold effects

Every year brings new predictions of AI rendering large swaths of white-collar jobs obsolete. Or falling salaries for white-collar workers due to AI. Or a video will go viral of a business mogul–be it Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, or Ford CEO Jim Farley–predicting mass-layoffs of white-collar jobs, or how automation will… Continue reading “Why are white-collar jobs so resilient , even with AI?”

Stephen Findeisen, known online as Coffeezilla, gained popularity in 2022 as a YouTuber who exposes crypto scams. Given that there are no shortage of scams, his channel quickly found an audience, with 4.4 million subscribers as of 2026. The combination of his suspenders and no-nonsense demeanor lends him the credibility of a reformed Gordon Gekko–an… Continue reading Coffeezilla: the most overrated scam investigator

I was going to write about California’s proposed wealth tax, but with the breaking Venezuela news, that will have to be postponed. In hindsight, it’s little surprise that the Trump administration attacked Venezuela. He had been signaling action throughout December and finally pulled the trigger around the New Year. Too bad, I didn’t mention this… Continue reading U.S. Strikes Venezuela, Maduro Deposed: My thoughts

I saw this going viral on Twitter: Curtis Yarvin argues, in his latest Substack piece, that the window of opportunity for the Trump administration to conduct a regime change of the federal bureaucracy has closed, and as a consequence no meaningful, long-term change will come out of the administration. Follow:… pic.twitter.com/f6orbmiM3T — AF Post (@AFpost)… Continue reading Yarvin: the Trump window has closed

Once again, it’s time for the New Year’s forecasts. Economics and Finance This is actually the easiest to forecast despite the common assumption that markets are hopelessly or unpredictably random or efficient. There are patterns which are easy to exploit. Dips in the stock market tend to be brief. The market quickly recovers whenever Trump… Continue reading Predictions for 2026