Category: Uncategorized

I have been thinking about why writing has become harder in recent years. I blame what I call the ‘Substack effect’. In short–the sudden, huge success of the Substack blogging platform has raised the bar for online, short-form non-fiction writing. The popularity of Substack has both raised the quality of online writing in the aggregate,… Continue reading The ‘Substack Effect’–How Substack made writing better, but also harder

In an upcoming book co-authored with Nate Soares, Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn’t pull any punches, promising in the title that if anyone builds superhuman AI, that ‘everyone in will die.’ But It’s more likely that rather than everyone dying, this book will go in the dustbin of history. Like most non-fiction books, the putative objective of… Continue reading No one needs or wants a book about AI risk

Inspired by Dynomight’s viral post “Why doesn’t advice work?” I have been thinking about why does advice work so poorly. Or why is there such a stark disconnect between the application of said advice and the desired outcome? Why does advice work for a few and not most? I am going to ignore the edge… Continue reading Why does advice work so poorly?

Tesla stock keeps going up having surged from as low as $230 a month ago to over $350. The cars are everywhere. Three years post-Covid, Tesla went from a niche to mainstream, defying the media’s predictions of it either running out of money or being a fad. What makes this more impressive is that the… Continue reading How Tesla defied the odds

Consider the following recent stories as indicative of the stark contrast between the risk of small business, compared to the relative safety and high-ROI of careerism–a similar patten observed in 2008, 2020, and now 2025 it pertains to Trump’s tariffs: “The Art of the Price Hike”: Trump’s tariff plan has pushed America’s businesses into a… Continue reading Trump’s tariffs: white-collar careers boom, small biz struggles: same as it always was

Interesting post by Rob K. Henderson, Experts and Elites Play Fundamentally Different Games. He begins by defining the categories: Experts are people who know things. They’re judged by other experts—people who speak the same language, use the same methods, and know the same details. You can spot experts by their credentials, their technical precision, or… Continue reading Pundits vs. Elites vs. Experts

On the hierarchy of intelligence or difficulty/rigor, ‘wordcels’ are ranked too low. And data/AI people are ranked too high. Although STEM and practical-minded stuff (e.g. business) are often positioned higher on the ‘intellectual totem pole’ compared to the ‘soft and subjective humanities’, my evidence shows it’s not so clear cut. With the exception of the… Continue reading ‘Wordcels’ are ranked too low

I saw this going viral: Are the girlies just all blitzed out of their minds on the reg? I had no idea pic.twitter.com/SFNvciyI3l — Rota (@pli_cachete) May 3, 2025 People are overly inclined to overestimate the claimed physiological effects of caffeine. Its reputation as a stimulant is way overblown. As I discuss earlier, when people… Continue reading Caffeine’s reputation as a stimulant is overblown

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I saw this tweet going viral How are rising mathematicians and physicists coping with the imminent advancements in AI? I have personally met folks who are working on integrating LLMs with proof verification languages (such as Lean) that project under a 2 year time horizon before LLMs can generate proofs and… — sarah (@Saraht0n1n) March… Continue reading It’s time to give the AI doomsaying a rest