Category: Uncategorized

Time for a mid-year recap post of all the predictions. The Turkish Lira crashed this week on Turkey’s newly appointed Finance Minister, Mehmet Simsek, ending the Turkish Central Bank’s costly scheme to prop up its currency. Just like I said would happen earlier this year: Prediction 1: Turkish stock market and ETF (ticker symbol: TUR)… Continue reading Turkish Lira crashes, crypto crashes: right again. Mid-year recap.

Marc Andreessen’s article Why AI Will Save The World went hugely viral. As to be expected, the tone is breathlessly optimistic. I agree that AI-doom fears are likely overblown and unfounded. The people who are championing this view have shifted the burden of proof to everyone else to prove why AI will not destroy the… Continue reading AI is not going to make things cheaper (hidden fees and costs will persist)

The crypto clown show continues. Looks like I was right again: Crypto regulation is getting way worse, as I predicted a few months ago when Bitcoin was at $30k; now at $25k, on its way to $10k. The SEC is putting on the screws on crypto, in the span of only two days suing Binance… Continue reading The crypto clown show continues: more lawsuits

The designation or descriptor of ‘snowflake’ as synonymous with weakness or fragility, or snowflake as an insult against the left, has never made much sense to me. The indefatigable desire to banish one’s ideological enemies/opponents from all corners of the internet and discourse, has never struck me as snowflake-like. The persistence and ruthlessness in identifying… Continue reading ‘Snowflake’ as an insult has never made sense

In the 2020 post “A post-truth era? Why Americans may be better-informed than ever,” I argue that despite the ‘fake news’ meme and ‘disinformation’, that technology and social media makes it easier for people to be informed. This is somewhat in agreement with articles by Scott Alexander and Richard Hanania defending the media as being… Continue reading Why people may be better-informed than ever before

Interesting article Your Favorite Writers Aren’t “Brave” Watching the DeSantis campaign, I keep asking myself, is this guy ever going to take a stance that goes against his immediate political interests? Will he ever say one thing that will make the online right mad? I can’t think of a single time he has. I’ve written… Continue reading DeSantis is Firing on all Cylinders

From Emil, Some people have IQs of 160: Hoel is right about that. People who claim very high IQs are usually narcissistic or mislead. There is no normal way to obtain reliability estimates in that range for normal people. But that’s something we can address by designing better tests! It won’t be entirely possible to… Continue reading Measuring very high IQ, and being among the smartest

Are we finally seeing ‘go woke go broke’ become a reality’? Until recently, ‘go woke go broke’ was more like wishful thinking. Post-Covid, from 2020-2022, woke companies such as Disney seemed impervious, but not anymore. Consider the weak performance of the following large companies, Nike, Disney, Anheuser-Busch Inbev, and Target relative to the S&P 500… Continue reading Is ‘go woke go broke’ finally happening, thanks to Elon and Twitter?

Right again: Ark’s Cathie Wood sells Nvidia stock at the bottom, missing out on huge rally. Ark has significantly lagged the QQQ/Nasdaq index, as I predicted in 2022 and early 2023 it would: Ark is down 11% over the past year compared to 13% gains for QQQ. No matter which timeframe I choose, Ark is… Continue reading The daily view 5/29/2023: Ark, Bitcoin Keeps Lagging Tech, DeSantis vs. Trump

Interesting article: How to write like Malcolm Gladwell: Prose style and structure in The Tipping Point. Malcolm Gladwell’s books have been derided, by both sides of the aisle, for making claims that are dubious or do not stand to scrutiny. Yet his books are influential and sell well. Concepts or memes such as the “10,000… Continue reading A single story is worth a million studies