It’s never going to come to a point where there will be no jobs or no demand for jobs; just because a robot is created doesn’t mean it will reduce the net number of jobs, but what is will do is make some over the more overpaid and redundant jobs obsolete. This trend towards more… Continue reading The Automation Economy and the Bifurcation of the Workforce
Public Outrage Getting in the Way of Good Eugenics Policy
One of the big stories this week is the lesbian couple that sued the sperm donor, setting off a firestorm of outrage. Its easy to invoke the slippery slope fallacy, but in the second biotech revolution , genes are playing an increasing important role in society and preventative medicine; whether we wish to to accept… Continue reading Public Outrage Getting in the Way of Good Eugenics Policy
Debunking More Wealth Inequality BS
Income inequality’s sick joke: A rising tide only lifts luxury yachts Well, no kidding; if you take a chunk of wealth from the rich and give it to the poor, the poor will indeed see an immediate rise in wealth and sending power, but is that the best approach to economic policy? Or will spreading… Continue reading Debunking More Wealth Inequality BS
The IQ Wars
The IQ wars are back: Practice Does Not Make Perfect The IQ wars were a series of public exchanges involving academics, journalists and bloggers in the field of behavior psychology, human biology, and sociology that spanned from 2008 to 2013 between proponents of biological determinism (nature) lead by scientists Steven Pinker and Charles Murray and… Continue reading The IQ Wars
Post-2008 economy & HBD, Post-Scarcity, Political Science
Like OWS, the Hong Kong protests will blow over in a few weeks. How many times is there some event and all the hacks – whose livelihoods depend on page views and clicks – proclaim it the start of a new paradigm, when in reality it’s much ado about nothing? Same for Ebola. Like swine… Continue reading Post-2008 economy & HBD, Post-Scarcity, Political Science
Some Thoughts on IQ
Many people cannot appreciate how rare rare events are. The liberal media talks about financial crisis like it’s a common occurrence, yet in America there have only been two major financial crisis in the past 100 years, with an 80 year gap between them (1929 & 2008). It may be generations before there is a… Continue reading Some Thoughts on IQ
The Media and Global Warming
If you look at the media, ok, uh, Russia invading Ukraine, job loss, a police officer was killed. The things that happened yesterday, 99% of them will be forgotten next week. The news cycle always changes. The reports will all gather around and the editor will ask, ‘What do you have?’ Someone will say, ‘I… Continue reading The Media and Global Warming
The Daily View: Stocks, Individual Exceptionalism, Cultural Marxism, Birth Control
I would write more about the market, but not much going on. The S&P 500 is up 7% for 2014, but most of those gains are concentrated in a three-week period in May, with lots of churning before and after. It’s a weird, fickle market where sectors and stocks can be chopped to pieces in… Continue reading The Daily View: Stocks, Individual Exceptionalism, Cultural Marxism, Birth Control
The Great Ebola Outbreak of 2012 That No One’s Heard Of
Here is a perfect example of how correlation doesn’t equal causation: Cocoa prices surge on output fears over Ebola outbreak LONDON – Cocoa soared to 3.5-year highs this week on fears the Ebola outbreak could reach Ghana and Ivory Cost, the two biggest producers of the commodity used to make chocolate. Ghana and Ivory Coast… Continue reading The Great Ebola Outbreak of 2012 That No One’s Heard Of
Illusory Superiority and IQ
According to Derb’s own homepage, the prolific writer, autodidact, polymath, programmer and mathematician ‘only’ has an IQ of 135, which came as surprise to me. I’m sure if you asked others to guess Derb’s IQ they would shoot off numbers like 150 or 160, as would I. But perhaps his test had a low ceiling,… Continue reading Illusory Superiority and IQ