Quantumfreakonomics
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Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Robin Hanson on healthcare:
Education is the same way. The more human time and attention is dedicated to education (i.e. how much it costs), the more you signal that you care about educating children. The thing has been replaced by the symbolic representation of the thing. We would be in much less of a student debt crisis if middle-class women didn't have to get (subsidized) 4-year degrees in order to get childcare jobs at the government-run daycare.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
That wouldn't make sense under the text of section three, specifically, "but Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." If section three required congressional action, then congress would only need a simple majority of each house, since they could just amend the law or pass a special resolution.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
This market has been pretty consistent at 80-90% that the Colorado decision is reversed. I think people tend to underestimate the likelihood of an affirmation for a couple of reasons:
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Supreme Court justices are electorally insulated from the excesses of Trumpism.
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Conservative Supreme Court justices are uniquely predisposed to be unsympathetic towards mobs of people storming government buildings to protest official processes they disagree with.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I notice I am confused. There is a 10-15% chance that the Supreme Court rules Trump ineligible for the presidency. There is an additional 10-15% chance that Trump is literally in jail by the time the convention rolls around. Just because DeSantis can't beat Trump in a primary doesn't mean he has no chance. Even if he doesn't have the money for an active campaign, endorsing Trump kills his momentum for a "told you so" convention chaos campaign.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I guess it's this one.
On the note of non-serious non-in-depth discussions of weighty topics, I can't stop laughing at this tweet. Over 5 million views. I have legitimately no idea what point Sargon thinks he is making.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
We produce a lot of vaccines and gene therapy vectors this way
The biological process may be similar, but there is a big difference in risk profile between taking a human pathogen and passing it through non-human cells (making it less pathogenic to humans), and taking an animal pathogen and passing it through human cells (making it more pathogenic to humans).
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
If "none of the above" were allowed to win, what happens when a supreme court justice dies?
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Have we tried asking them to stop?
Like, do you think the CCP wants to keep doing gain-of-function research? My model is that they are afraid of losing face if they suddenly shut down virology research. That would be seen as an admission of guilt. But if we give them an excuse to shut it down, they could just point to some new trade deal or whatever as the reason WIV is closing its doors.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
he doesn't have the option to defect.
I don't believe this. He is going to have to pardon himself of felony charges anyways. Why not plunder whatever he can for personal gain? What's a few more pardons or a third (or fourth) impeachment to his eternal legacy? He might single-mindedly appoint judges based only on how likely they are to back him up in his legal battles, above all other considerations. Isn't that defecting?
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I realize that many people are in fact loyal to Trump. My point is that this is stupid and counterproductive. If you have a good reason that this is actually smart and productive, I would love to hear it.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
What is the steelman for voting for Trump in the primaries?
He's not a true outsider anymore. He's not an unknown quantity. We know his temperament. We know his governance style. What does he provide over Desantis/Haley/Ramaswamy? He didn't build the wall the first time, why would he do it now?
I have some ideas, but they're all terrible once you think about them for ten seconds. I am willing to believe that the median voter is unable to think clearly for ten seconds before being hijacked by monkey-brain, but I'd like to make sure I'm not missing something obvious.
1. Personal Loyalty: This is close to the Richard Hanania theory. Personal loyalty would make sense if Trump was loyal in turn to his supporters, but he isn't. How many of his lawyers have gone to jail? How many orange-blooded Trump fans lost their jobs or got arrested for believing in him too hard on January 6? He could have pardoned these people, but he didn't. Orange Man good because Orange Man good.
2. Perceived Injustice: Yes, Trump has been treated unfairly by the media and the Washington establishment. Lots of people have been. I can understand why this would be seen as a necessary condition (e.g. "nobody liked by the 'elites' could ever be a good president"), but why would this be a sufficient condition? Surely electability and general competence matter more than an extra standard-deviation worth of grievances against the media.
3. Hatred: I'm not talking about "Hate™". I'm talking about a genuine desire to see one's political enemies suffer. It's not even clear to me that Trump would be better at this than other Republican candidates, but I feel I would be missing something if I didn't put it on the list.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Lol, congress really just changed, "is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct", to, "is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct".
To be fair, current image generation technology was unthinkable back in 2003.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
A major consideration most people are missing is that the legal definition of child pornography includes:
"any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where— such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct"
If you ship an AI waifubot capable of creating sexually explicit content, and you can't robustly keep it from saying "tee-hee, I'm only 16," you are going to get arrested.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
There was some discussion in the 2021 MIRI dialogues about how virtual anime waifus will be the only economic impact from AI because everything else will be regulated to hell. Amazingly, it now seems that Eliezer was too optimistic.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
when the words "This is my Body" are said, it truly becomes the body of Christ.
What does this mean? I hear Catholics saying it all the time, but they’re just guessing the magisterium’s password. The Council of Trent said it, so you say it. If you take the literal phrase, “when the words ‘This is my Body’ are said, it truly becomes the body of Christ,” and interpret it using the norms of 21st century English, one would come to the conclusion that if you take a consecrated host, grind it up, and run a polymerase chain reaction on it, you’d end up with a vial full of Jesus DNA instead of grain DNA. Someone has claimed to have done this experiment. Maybe you think such trivialities are missing the point. I invite you to tell me, what is the point? Does the process of transsubstantiation change the host on the molecular level? the subatomic level? the quantum field level? If there are no physical effects, then in what way is this not a purely spiritual change?
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I would be stunned if this was the actual bottleneck. Adolescence brings on major changes in internal psychology. It should be possible to make the “eat me now”-response a reaction to adulthood hormones.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Canonically (I have been informed) within the advertising universe personified Pop-Tarts want desperately to be eaten, it is their favorite thing.
New EA cause area: Selectively breed chickens so that they enjoy being factory-farmed and eaten. Only half joking. Why wouldn't this work?
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I've seen sponsored ads (with the "ad" tag) for individual OnlyFans thots. I've also seen ads for "Bubbling" AI services like it's 2014 4chan. I love the site, but it's going to die.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
If it's a movie I haven't seen before, I have to watch it in one sitting or else the experience is ruined. Movies are very subtle. You don't know what information from the first act will be important in the second and third acts. The only way to ensure you don't forget something is to watch it in one continuous screening. That is how they films are designed and edited.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Yudkowsky
cannot credibly commit to cooperate in a prisoners' dilemma or be held to an existing agreement.
Come on man. Yudkowsky has made more progress on this general problem than any other living philosopher.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I don't think it's the sort of thing that should, or will, define Singer. I do, however, think that it's the sort of thing that should be part of his life story and so far has conspicuously not been.
Of course it's part of his life story. Peter Singer is a world-renowned hedonistic utilitarian philosopher. No shit he's sleeping around at work. I recall hearing similar rumors about Will MacAskill too. This is "priced in" as they say.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Idk about that, but I do think they would have throttled engagement.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
This is the fruit of the Elon-Twitter tree. "Claudine Gay" has been trending on X every other day for the last month. It helped a lot that it was a slow news cycle, but this sort of cultural momentum would have been impossible a few years ago.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Do they actually need to take resources from distant parts of the globe to provide 1.3 billion people electricity, internet access, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, decent food, and urban public transportation? That is the core of what I would consider "a good living standard," and I think these things are all surprisingly cheap. There won't be much left over to play signaling status games with, but you don't need to do that.
This is a policy choice. There is no law of the universe that says you have to pay
childcare techniciansteachers more if they have a master's degree.More options
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