Cognitive development economics: Understanding the mind in order to feed the world
Jul 26 JDN 2461248 Since the very beginning, journalists have been sanewashing Trump and his cronies: Whenever he or one of them says something absolutely absurd, they always try to find some more sensible way of rephrasing it as a vaguely-similar concept that might actually be a potentially reasonable government policy. To use one of Continue reading Somehow, the sanewashing continues
Jun 28 JDN 2461220 What do you suppose are the chances that, within the next 10 years, AGI is invented and ushers in a new era of abundance in which hardly anyone has to work and we all live in prosperity? A lot of people seem to think that this is actually pretty likely, for Continue reading I m pretty sure the Singularity won t happen, but it s still better odds than winning the lottery
Jun 21 JDN 2461213 I m calling it now: We officially live in the dystopian cyberpunk future. We re not headed that way; it s not on the horizon. It is here, now. The United States is a cyberpunk dystopia, exactly as we were warned it would become. Maybe there is still hope for the rest of the Continue reading Welcome to Cyberpunk.
May 31 JDN 2461192 They call themselves effective accelerationists, co-opting the acronym EA from Effective Altruism despite being about as diametrically opposed as it is possible to be. They rally behind the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, which I admit makes a lot of good points and has a very seductive quality to it; but when you get Continue reading The most dangerous idea you ve probably never…
May 24 JDN 2461185 Content warning: Algebra In 2018, David Graeber published a book called Bullshit Jobs, positing that the transition of our economy from industrial manufacturing to ‘post-industrial’ services was in fact largely a transition from meaningful jobs that do actual work to meaningless jobs that employ people without contributing to society. He made Continue reading Why “bullshit jobs”…
May 17 JDN 246178 Why do I make less money than, say, Mr. Beast (who now has a game show, apparently)? The proximal answer to this question is obvious: He has a lot more people viewing his content, so he can sell ads that make him enormous amounts of money. But that still leaves a Continue reading The stochastic superstar economy
May 10 JDN 246171 Consider two corporations. Corporation A has net income equal to 2.9% of its total revenue, and pretax income equal to 4.1% of its total revenue. The cost of its goods sold accounts for 77% of its revenue, with most of the remainder going to wages. This seems reasonable, right? It doesn t Continue reading A tale of two corporations
May 3 JDN 246164 I got into an argument a little while ago with an acquaintance of mine who is an avowed Marxist. He posted something that s been going around Marxist social media about the “irony” that Marx s labor theory of value is based on Smith and Ricardo s labor theories of value (plural; they re not Continue reading On labor theories of value
Apr 26 JDN 246157 This shocking story has been making the rounds: There is a website where men plan to drug and rape their wives. It s being called the “rape academy”. There is a factoid in the original reporting that has people especially shocked: The website that hosted this terrifying content had 62 million visitors Continue reading There are not 62 million rapists on that website
Apr 19 JDN 246150 Hungary s recent election results were just about as good as they could possibly have been. Victor Orban was not only defeated, but crushed; Magyar s party didn t just win, they won a supermajority. They now have the power to implement sweeping reforms that could prevent authoritarians like Orban from ever taking power Continue reading Wonderful news from Hungary