Grey Enlightenment

I saw this article going viral WHAT IF AMERICANS ARE HAPPY AT WORK?, by Derek Thompson, which got me thinking about the topic of work. In regard to the oft-asked question, “Why do Americans work so hard or so much?” the default explanation is that American are overworked out of economic necessity. Americans must work… Continue reading Why Americans Work So Much–Some Overlooked Explanations

Re-tweeted by Taleb. This is Taleb’s obligatory ‘defend the rich’ re-tweet about wealth being dynamic, as if this is some sort of profound insight or justifies wealth inequality: The United States is an unequal country but the inequality is dynamic: it’s very hard to to hang on to wealth for multiple generations… or even one… Continue reading Why wealth may have been more fleeting and dynamic in the past, compared to stasis today

Reminder that there are honest seed-oil apologists and informed seed-oil apologists, but there are no honest, informed seed-oil apologists. https://t.co/P8tlnJwlez — exfatloss (@exfatloss) December 1, 2023 The obvious objection to this is if obesity is caused by seed oils, then it logically follows that solving the obesity crisis is as strait-forward as eliminating said oils,… Continue reading Stop blaming seed oils for obesity

The big story is Henry Kissinger dies at 100. Although Kissinger is often accused of war crimes and secret bombings, it was Nixon who signed off on the bombings. Kissinger followed through on the order after putting up, albeit, minimal resistance. Nixon was the commander-in-chief–the highest office in the land–so the buck stopped with him,… Continue reading Henry Kissinger dies at 100–some thoughts

Item #1 Ep. 41 Dublin in flames. What’s happening in Ireland will happen here, at scale. Steve Bannon explains. pic.twitter.com/KzrRUJq0ZL — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 27, 2023 America is not at all like Ireland in terms of culture, diversity, geography, and other key factors. Although diversity is often seen as a catalyst for unrest, more… Continue reading The Daily View 11/29/2023: Unrest, Home Prices, College, Life Expectancy, Charlie Munger

Two views of Crime: The Economist: Can we believe China's claims of being a low crime society? Yes, because East Asians are always low crime on every inhabited continent. Without some knowledge of human variation, some things become mysterious when they shouldn't be. https://t.co/bJurg2V3Dy — Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) November 26, 2023 A quick note on… Continue reading The incompleteness of crime stats

45 days later, this is what happened. Almost everything was destroyed but Hamas. And, of course, the world is becoming more and more pro-Palestinian. https://t.co/nrrSpoSxTN — Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) November 24, 2023 Well no shit. If Israel made an actual concerted effort to end Hamas, the ‘international community’ would be on its ass even… Continue reading The daily view: Twitter edition

I saw this going viral: OpenAI Engineers Earning $800,000 a Year Turn Rare Skillset Into Leverage: The most common salary range for an engineering job listed on OpenAI’s website is $200,000 to $370,000, though a handful of more specialized roles advertise ranges from $300,000 to $450,000, said Roger Lee, co-founder of compensation benchmarking firm Comprehensive.io.… Continue reading OpenAI Engineers Earning $800,000 a Year

Item #1: Texas attorney general opens investigation into Media Matters for ‘potential fraudulent activity’: EXCLUSIVE—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is opening an investigation into Media Matters for “potential fraudulent activity” after X CEO Elon Musk accused the left-wing media watchdog group of manipulating data on the social media platform. After a slew of advertisers, including… Continue reading The daily view: 11/21/2023

Last week Media Matters ran a hit piece regarding Musk condoning alleged antisemitism on the platform, causing some advertisers to defect. Musk went on the attack, claiming that Media Matters took the data out of content, which I do not dispute. I think he is right. My opinion of Media Matters, like all watchdog non-profits,… Continue reading Elon’s free speech defection