Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
We’re reaching levels of cope that shouldn’t be possible.
Noting first that this isn’t literally a concession, where is the curiosity here? If someone who is racist and has bad data nevertheless gets the right answer, shouldn’t you like update on that? Shouldn’t you at least consider the possibility that your preconceived notions about at least one of
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Racism,
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Lynn’s data quality, or
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The scientific method
Is wrong?
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
The proper pricing of commodities and equities is actually of great value to society. The Physics Ph.D in a Manhattan office building high-frequency trading corn futures doesn't see anything except numbers on a screen, but corn farmers in Iowa (and consumers of corn like chicken farmers) benefit greatly from accurate and liquid futures markets in corn.
In order to consistantly make money in trading, one has to buy low and sell high. This inherently provides a price-stabilizing effect. Buying when prices are low causes prices to rise; selling when prices are high causes prices to fall.
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
This market will resolve to "Yes" if the US government holds any amount of Bitcoin in its reserves at any point between January 20, 2025, ET and April 29, 2025, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No".
Note that the US government confiscating Bitcoin does not count as holding Bitcoin reserves.
The primary resolution source for this market will be official information from the US government and/or the US federal reserve, however a consensus of credible reporting will also be used.
What if Trump tweets that, "the United States holds $X of bitcoin reserves", but he is just referring to the bitcoin that has been confiscated?
Quantumfreakonomics
8d ago
What I don't get is how a years-long analysis could possibly be useful.
It’s not useful, but that doesn’t matter. The text of NEPA requires agencies to describe “any reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of the proposed agency action.” Try sitting down for 30 seconds to think about all of the reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of setting the environment on fire.
Quantumfreakonomics
9d ago
Small potatoes compared to what’s possible. It’s like bombing a plane vs flying it into a skyscraper. Imagine you were a patient, clever, and well-prepared terrorist in LA yesterday, how much damage do you think you would be able to cause?
Quantumfreakonomics
9d ago
A fire just broke out in the Hollywood hills. Hellicopters are swarming. I expext the authorities to pull-out all the stops to protect Hollywood.
The West coast is a pretty unique climate and biome. We don't have fires like this in the Eastern US, even though parts of the East are incredibly overgrown.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
An uncomfortably large amount of human behavior, even at the very top, is just blindly following the herd. YouTube and Twitter banned Fuentes? Guess Facebook will too. They banned the president of the United States? Right behind you. Zuck’s heart was never in it. I don’t think he sees himself as a particularly ethics-driven person to begin with. Onlyfans-shilling thots are considered spam on the other platforms; on Instagram, they’re the content.
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
If the United States invaded Canada out of the blue one day what would happen? Would they even shoot back? If Canada invoked Article V would the UK or France threaten nuclear war?
I don’t really have a model for this, and yet it could easily happen.
Quantumfreakonomics
13d ago
I oftentimes wonder just how much microfauna taxonomy is fake. Like, this particular decision had major historical consequences, but the average guy doing minnow or crawfish taxonomy can probably get away with classifying whatever he finds in some obscure South American tributary as a new species without anyone calling him out on it. Are there actually 30,000 species of scarab beetle out there? All of the ones I ever see look the same.
Quantumfreakonomics
13d ago
A big problem with medicine, along with other notoriously expensive professional services like law, is that knowing which specific actions to take is part of the service. One can't provide a remotely accurate quote without having already performed the services requested. A checkup for a 10-year-old boy with no medical conditions is a very different service from a checkup for a 58-year-old woman with twelve medications and diabetes.
Quantumfreakonomics
15d ago
Timothy McVeigh also had the benefit of operating before the Department of Homeland Security was a thing. Try buying thousands of pounds of ammonium nitrate nowadays without getting knock on the door.
Quantumfreakonomics
15d ago
I wonder if there's a covert operation to place misleading information about bomb-making on the internet to prevent would-be terrorists from acheiving their true potential. It seems like every wannabe terrorist has a bomb nowadays, but they never do any damage.
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
There have been almost no Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States since 2017 compared to the 20 years before that. It could be a coincidence that we get the biggest one in 10 years immediately after Assad's Syria falls, but I have suspicions.
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
In honor of Vivek Ramaswamy, what is the proper interpretation of the movie "Whiplash"?
Quantumfreakonomics
25d ago
It is amusing to me that the only crime considered worthy of death is being on the wrong end of a current thing murder. Things aren’t looking good for our boy Luigi.
Quantumfreakonomics
26d ago
Oooh, I think your right. The timeline matches up with the passage of the ADA (which requires extra time on exams for disabilities, among other things).
Quantumfreakonomics
28d ago
Owning stock in the company that builds AGI is one of the best ways to increase your probability of being in the 10%!
Fun fact:
Quantumfreakonomics
28d ago
For the last few years I have thought that for sure other companies would be able to knock-off their market share. This opinion has cost me thousands of dollars.
Quantumfreakonomics
28d ago
preferably through broadly diversified, cost-efficient vehicles.
I don't know. To quote OpenAI, "it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world." While almost all stockholder distributions are currently paid in cash, in-kind distributions are not unknown, and could potentially become the primary benefit of holding AI-exposed companies. If Microsoft gives stockholders access to the OFFICIAL OPENAI EXPERIENCE MACHINE, you might not get access simply from holding SPY, QQQ, or VTI. Hell, you might want to direct-register your shares to prevent any beneficial ownership shenanegans.
Quantumfreakonomics
28d ago
The key element in IV that makes it work is how smooth industrialization feels. There’s not just two or three key techs that unlock massive growth. Almost every single advance between printing press and electricity gives a tiny productivity advantage too small to notice individually, but each one compounds all of the others. Nothing before or since has quite matched it in terms of aesthetics of play.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Why would they? If they leave it vague, "we are conducting tests of classified defense technology over civilian airspace," that would make everyone freak out more. If they say specifically what they're testing, that compromises our counterintelligence efforts.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
90% chance this is some classified US government project. The feds didn’t officially acknowledge Area 51 for decades after it was obvious they had a test base there. This is just how they roll.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
but I know the infection control nurse is the person who goes around cancelling all of our tests that will show that the patient got a hospital acquired infection" (through nobody's fault) because the government doesn't like when we have those.
First thought: How is this a thing?
Second thought: Oh yeah, economics. Of course this is a thing.
Third thought: Can we shoot these people instead?
Fourth thought: It totally was somebody’s fault. I realize that meticulous clinical hygiene is hard. People will still die if you screw it up.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
I think they’re about $1000.
The discussion was had and was highly relevent to subsequent developments. There was more than zero conflict, particularly around the aquisition of X/Twitter, but discussion ultimately won.
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