Taleb claims there was deflation in 2020: INFLATION (again)When discussing the inflation of 2022 (like parrots), make sure you incorporate the deflation of 2020. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 7, 2022 Of course, this is refuted by looking at the actual data, which shows inflation in 2020, about 1.2%. Any alleged deflation in 2020… Continue reading Tooleb tweets, part 3

The tweet below seems to exemplify or encapsulate the situation today regarding the so-called ‘vacuum of leadership’ as discussed in How the Vacuum of Leadership in Washington led to Rage Online: Weak nations require strong leaders; strong nations require weak leaders, or, better, no leader. (New pamphlet) — Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 5, 2022… Continue reading The Vacuum of Leadership, part 2

“Has scientific progress stalled?” “Where are the new Einsteins?” “Has society stopped making new geniuses?” A week does not go by without someone asking some variant of the above questions, or lamenting how there are no ‘great geniuses’ like in the past, or how today’s geniuses don’t measure up to past geniuses. No, society has… Continue reading Has science stalled out? Sorta

I saw this article going viral Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? Probably because the government handed them a blank check in 1993. This is a perfect example of how easy it is to deceive with data. The author, Andrew, attributes the surge in college tuition costs to the Omnibus… Continue reading Lyin’ with stats: college tuition edition

The posts These are not the villains you’re looking for and The Expendables: The Millions of Americans that Society Has No Use For got butchered in the final editing process and parts were illegible or repeated. The posts have been re-edited, hopefully with fewer errors. From The Expendables: The Millions of Americans that Society Has… Continue reading Post Updates: IQ and Job Professions

What if the problems we see today–wokeness, cancel culture, increased political division, distrust of institutions and governments–can be blamed on a lack good villains? America saw strong economic growth and stability starting in the 40s and all the way through through the Cold War, ending in 1991, in which the Axis powers, and then shorty… Continue reading These are not the villains you’re looking for

The past two months have been especially tough. Does the recent selloff in the markets invalidate my forecasting abilities? I don’t think so. First, Bitcoin is still much weaker than the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, as I said would happen. Since late 2020, Bitcoin has lagged large cap tech and the S&P500, and the gap… Continue reading Forecast Updates: Stocks Recover as Bitcoin Lags

It’s not news that America’s homelessness problem seems to have gotten worse over the past decade. Although homelessness has fallen or stayed the same since 2007, especially after adjusted for population growth, the number of tent cities has surged since then. The tents dot freeway onramps, lawns outside of strip malls, along sidewalks, parks, etc.… Continue reading The Expendables: The Millions of Americans that Society Has No Use For

Elon tweeted: USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years pic.twitter.com/v5PSLbvEAE — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2022 For the past year he has been going on about the dangers of falling fertility, calling it the biggest threat to civilization. Such fears are likely overblown. He says “USA birth rate has… Continue reading The overblown population/fertility crisis

I saw this article by Moldbug Letter to a young “white supremacist” Moldbug sorta seems like a right-wing version of Fredrik deBoer in that they both make the same sort of argument against performative activism. I fully understand the Moldbug incrementalism approach. The problem is, it’s not going to work for people who have high… Continue reading The Asymmetry of Activism vs. Content Creation