Category: Uncategorized

Improving Society and Policy

From Jim: Fixing housing, health, and education. The fundamental problem is the misallocation of public resources. Replace costly, time-consuming diplomas with SATs, Wondericks, and other IQ-like proxies, to signal competence. Employers realize that GPAs are becoming diluted due to grade inflation. This also explains why there is a push by the left to make these… Continue reading Improving Society and Policy

Hacker News Rankings: More Than an Algorithm

Hacker News, like Reddit, is a community-powered news site where users can submit links they find noteworthy. By default, new submissions go under the ‘new’ tab, but some get promoted to the much more visible ‘news’ tab (the front page), generating a substantial amount of traffic to promoted sites. Submissions under the ‘new’ tab also… Continue reading Hacker News Rankings: More Than an Algorithm

Neoconservatism

I never understood how NRx reconciled technology with ethnonationalism, when the two seem at odds with each other. The Vox article lists tech billionaires Elon Musk and Peter Thiel as being somehow tangentially related to NRx, yet I imagine they probably advocate neoliberal economic and trade policy that would go against ethnonationalist interests. In 2010,… Continue reading Neoconservatism

Utilitarianism and Consequentialism

There is some renewed debate about whether ‘Friendly AI’ can blackmail, also known as the Roko’s Basilisk problem. More information about it can be found here, here, here, and here. I’m kinda amazed by how much attention this has gotten, with stories even on Business Insider about the thought experiment. Roko’s Basilisk addresses an as-yet-nonexistent… Continue reading Utilitarianism and Consequentialism

The Daily View: NRx Activism, Do You Live in a Bubble, Math Education, Contrarianism

Lately there has been some debate about pasivism vs. activism, in regard to NRx. The the final way, rather than passivism or activism, is that, economically, autonomous economic forces will make welfare liberalism obsolete, and then, socially, social media will continue to erode the ability of the left to impose their cultural will on people… Continue reading The Daily View: NRx Activism, Do You Live in a Bubble, Math Education, Contrarianism

Vox Explains the ‘Alt Right’

Vox.com explains the ‘alt right’. In agreement with posts I wrote in 2014, elements of the ‘alt right’, including NRx and HBD, are starting to gain more mainstream appeal, as evidenced by Vox.com, a mainstream online news source, expose on the ‘alt right’, replete with all the usual characters like Moldbug and Land. This also… Continue reading Vox Explains the ‘Alt Right’

Diagnosing Democracy

Moldbug’s final post: Coda I know ‘neocon’ and ‘neoliberal’ have become pejorative labels as late, but these are the only two ideologies that seem to respect individualism within a mixed economy, as a middle ground between the ‘rule of law’ and personal autonomy. Bernie Sanders represents the far-left, who want to restrict individual wealth too… Continue reading Diagnosing Democracy

Millennials Make a Killing Day Trading on Reddit

Millennials Make a Killing Day Trading on Reddit MarketWatch’s Shawn Langlois and Sally French join Quentin Fottrell and Priya Anand with the details on how Reddit became the go-to place for rowdy millennial traders to gather in 2016. Again, not to make this too political, but many on the left keep repeating the same narratives… Continue reading Millennials Make a Killing Day Trading on Reddit

Education and the Blank Slate: Setting Realistic Expectations

Excellent article from a surprising source: Helicopter Parenting Has Given Birth To A Generation of Entitled Victims Another similar patient I saw was a 14-year old female presenting with depression and anxiety. Though she was of moderate intelligence, she and her highly-educated parents insisted on her taking the toughest classes in pursuit of her primary… Continue reading Education and the Blank Slate: Setting Realistic Expectations