Grey Enlightenment

Time for another Twitter Round-up Item #1: perils of low-insight moderation systems: @raspy_aspie banned for joking about what he’d say to his younger self he’s a good dude; hopefully they let him out of Twitter Jail soon pic.twitter.com/UUC9tCfsii — TracingWoodgrains (@tracewoodgrains) February 8, 2025 Kanye was able to rant and rave for many days unimpeded… Continue reading The Daily View, 2/17/2025: Twitter-Roundup Edition

From, astralcodexten On Priesthoods: Many priesthoods, like doctors, still have a good reputation. Even people who disagree with the medical establishment maintain a fetish for the priesthood, and will parade the tiny number of renegade MDs on their side as the strongest evidence that they’re right. In no order, math, physics or philosophy are closer… Continue reading Healthcare is Not Like a Priesthood

A common narrative, as I have often observed on Twitter and Hacker News, is that East Asia ought to serve as a role model for mitigating obesity in the US. The apparent success of East Asian countries at having low rates of obesity is something that can be emulated in the US, or that their… Continue reading Debunking hype about East Asian health and not needing Ozempic

2025 is off to the biggest start of any year. Even 2024. 1. A big fat zero for Trump crypto donors. No Bitcoin reserve, as I predicted. Trump predictably gave his wealthy crypt donors a big, fat zero for their support. This goes to show the limitations of money in politics. The assumption is wealthy… Continue reading A ‘big’ start to 2025

Why do so many health influencers and coaches promote refeeds or ‘diet breaks’ in an effort to combat the inevitable metabolic slowdown and willpower depletion that arises with prolonged dieting, even though there is scant to zero evidence to suggest they work? Any metabolic boost from the refeed, however small, is negated by net weight… Continue reading Reverse dieting/refeeds are a scam

Typically, the way you get less of a certain behavior is to disincentive it. This can mean social pressures, deterrence in the case of prison, or economic penalties. As I explained in a 2024 post, I posit careerism is the leading cause of delayed family formation in the US and likely other developed countries. The… Continue reading Blame lucrative white-collar jobs for delayed family formation

Eternal September describes how in 1993 when Usenet forums became added to AOL there was a perceived sudden dumbing-down or reduction of quality of discourse due to the floodgates being opened to a larger, less internet-savvy audience. I think the same is seen regarding so-called ‘dead internet theory’–it’s not that AI or bots have replaced… Continue reading It’s not Dead Internet Theory. It’s more like Dumb Internet Theory

How did I know Trump would waffle on the reserve when everyone else was certain it would happen, only to be wrong? From my Jan 7th post a month ago, I observed that Trump hadn’t actually spoken or tweeted about the reserve, or about crypto at all. This was a negative development unbeknownst to everyone… Continue reading How I Knew there Would be No Reserve + Bonus Math Problem

The big story this weekend are the Trump tariffs. As to be expected the sensationist media is predicting the typical doom and gloom. Similar to Trump’s first tariffs during 2017, I am predicting these latest tariffs will only have a limited negative effect on the stock market, the overall US economy, or on inflation. Any… Continue reading Trump Tariffs a ‘nothing burger’

I am net bearish on Bitcoin and using it as a hedge against my leveraged tech portfolio. This method has done great since late 2022 even though the price of Bitcoin has appreciated considerably. Shorting bitcoin also worked great as a hedge last Friday when it fell from $104k to $102k in a flat overall… Continue reading Bitcoin weak again as I am right