Month: September 2026

I saw this post going viral, “Why You Should Almost Never Use AI to Write Anything Substantive.” I’ve defended the use of AI in writing here and here. My reasoning is that writing competently is hard for the vast majority of people, and although AI-generated writing is still obvious or inferior, (despite rapid progress at… Continue reading AI Helps People Get Past the Blank Page

There has been a lot of talk about “AI doom” or “AI crisis”. My position is the same now as it was years ago: despite exponential progress in AI, society remains mostly unchanged: No mass-unemployment, no collapse of social order. Over the longer-term, productivity goes up, but society itself does not change structurally aside from… Continue reading When it comes to AI job-loss forecasts, it’s time to put up or shut up

With “AI regulatory capture” dominating the headlines and discourse online, a smaller but still important story is the failure of the Clarity Act gain the necessary 60 Senate votes to pass to the next stage, effectively killing it: Washington — The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance a sweeping cryptocurrency bill known as the Clarity… Continue reading The Clarity Act dies–right again

With the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem apparently solved, and potential solutions to one or two of the remaining problems on the horizon, it’s an understatement to say AI is good at math. AI has gotten so good, it has even called into doubt if math a profession can survive, with a collective of Field Medalists… Continue reading The final frontier for AI: writing

A couple weeks ago, this tweet stood out to me: I think one thing Paul Graham underweights when he advises people on how to write is the fact that sometimes you need cleverness to earn status with the reader. Paul has earned status by making a ton of money. Him writing simply is like Zuckerberg… Continue reading How much of “write simply” is just survivorship bias?

So far I have been right about almost everything: Item #1: On Polymarket, the odds of the Strait of Hormuz traffic returning to normal has plunged even more. This has been one of my most profitable trades ever in terms of ROI. The “no” contract surged from 18 to 84 cents in about 2.5 months,… Continue reading The daily view 9/10/2026 Polymarket huge Iran win, AI vs Writing, AI vs Math, and Hedging

In Ed West’s viral post, “Doomscrolling ourselves to death,” the contrast between Truman and Trump is interesting: Marriott contrasts Harry Truman, who ruled America during the peak of literacy, with the current incumbent. Truman ‘was the son of a livestock dealer in Independence, Missouri. And yet as an earnest and bespectacled schoolboy he spent great… Continue reading The Optimality Thesis: Why America Doesn’t Need a Smart President

“U.S. payrolls rose 162,000 in August, much more than expected; unemployment rate at 4.1%:” The U.S. economy added jobs at a brisk pace in August, reversing a summer slowdown in hiring, while the unemployment rate held steady. Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 162,000 for the month while the unemployment rate, as expected, held steady… Continue reading The daily view 9/6/2026: No mass unemployment due to AI, Nike’s downfall , AI and cheating

Bitcoin plunged on the aforenoted job report, erasing yesterday’s gain. (Disclosure: I remain short Bitcoin.) This is why shorting Bitcoin is the best hedge, as was originally my idea. Bitcoin has much more beta/sensitivity to the downside, whether it’s inflation due to too many jobs, or crisis due to deflation and job loss. Or bad… Continue reading Buying tech and shorting Bitcoin as a play on “power dynamics”

This Andrew Yang tweet was going viral: Heard about a small college in the Midwest that has lost 50% of its enrollment in the last 10 years. Hundreds of colleges are going to close in the next decade and it’s going to be devastating for many communities. — Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 30, 2026 Whether… Continue reading The Cope of Predicting Higher Ed’s Death