The questions discussed in that thread are critically important.
In a state that purports to be based on science, how do we distinguish between real science (Maxwell’s equations) and ‘science’ (a study that came out last week)?
Independent replication, not insistent repetition.
You can think about it as expert vs layman, or you can alternately think about it as smarter vs less smart people (as in the thread below by @lastcontrarian).
But perhaps the most unambiguous way to think about performance is in terms of absolute metrics vs relative metrics.
Like Martin Luther, we live in a time of corrupt institutions. People will critique the rigor of Harvard PhDs, the validity of the SAT, the reality of the 10X engineer, and so on.
Usually this means they don’t trust the human judgment involved in bestowing these “ranks”.
What is hard to argue with are absolute results.
Does the plane fly?
How fast did they run the mile?
What was the cryptographic timestamp on that assertion?
A key question is how to restructure as many ranking algorithms as possible on absolute metrics.
Btw, Elo scores are good for unambiguously, algorithmically scoreable head-to-head matchups. Works for chess, not ice skating.
@PTetlock’s work does claim that expert forecasters weren’t better than amateurs in some areas…
First, robotics > demographics. Instagram had 13 employees, Kodak 13000. Who won?
Second, they’re flipping every switch to boost birth rates. Three child policy. Intentionally crashing education & housing costs. Less 996, more babies. They are aware and trying.
@charlierward@bbalkus@RoastedFowl@JackNaneek Remember, modern China is capable of absolute hairpin turns in policy. From communism to capitalism. From celebrating Jack Ma to canceling him.
And, potentially, from the one child policy and “incentivized” birth control to the three child policy and “incentivized” birth.
The US government has already named its replacements. By sending manufacturing overseas, the future of hard power is CCP. And by printing trillions of dollars, the future of hard money is BTC.
The BTC point is well debated. On the CCP point, Brose is the former Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. By his account he could see every line item of America's $700B defense budget, including confidential parts.
Moderately bullish on India, extremely bullish on Indians.
Why? The Indian state itself is generally on the way up (see below), but it's often two steps forward and one step back.
However, it's now good enough to be a launchpad for globally competitive Indians — to achieve both within India, and outside it. tigerfeathers.substack.com/p/the-internet…
The internet works, the power is on. That's all we needed to rise.
But I don't think there's any point in going for the US national government. It is on track to notch world-historical defeats on both economic and military matters. Capturing it is catching a falling knife. Instead, focus on DAOs and startup cities worldwide.
If you believe the premises, you believe the conclusion.
What's up? Tech, Bitcoin, China, India.
What's down? US economic, military, and demographic predominance.
Christian Brose is the former Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. By his own account he could see every line item of America's $700B defense budget, including all the confidential bits.