Crime statistics from the FBI are unreliable. If you look at their primary sources you can often find >20% differences between their primary source data vs. what the FBI reports. And the FBI always errors on the side of underreporting.
the only two datasets on earth i trust are the reported exchange of a specific quantity of a good at a time and place for a price denominated in another good
and church records of marriages between two specific people at a time and a place
all other data is made up
deaths from specific causes? made up
labor productivity over time? made up
caloric consumption over time? made up
___ as a percentage of household income? made up
GDP? made up
unemployment rate? made up
inflation? made up
Apr 29, 2023 • 12 tweets • 7 min read
@strangestloop@metaLulie chapter 1: it's possible to know things without direct experience. the source of knowledge is making a guess and then criticizing that guess with competing guesses or evidence. this is called 'conjecture'
@strangestloop@metaLulie chapter 2: ideas and genes both spread through self replication. but genetic memes can be spread while dormant but idea memes require expression to continue spreading. we all participate in the spreading of idea memes every day
Apr 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
watching the first episode of Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion)
don't remember the last time i watched something with this much respect for the audience. simple incredible
you just get to watch the characters interact with each other with near zero information at the beginning as to their relationships or history and the world is a complete mystery. everything is a surprise. simply delightful
Mar 13, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
the Fed’s new program means banks can now borrow against their long duration bonds at par without limit. there is now zero risk for moving everything out to long duration and huge rewards for locking in 4.5% coupons for 10+ years. US banking just unlocked new levels of degeneracy
K a t a s t r o p h e n h a u s s e
as insane as this sounds to read with the benefit of hindsight, i totally understand.
i felt this way about someone once too. in 2015 that person kidnapped me, trafficked me, and blackmailed me out of my life savings at the time of ~$45,000. i spent the next 3 years homeless.
sociopathic charisma is something i never would have believed in if i hadn't experienced it first hand. but there really are people out there who spend their entire lives honing their social intelligence to gain wealth, power, and status.
Nov 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
doing a cursory scroll through the large content creators who were sponsored by FTX and looks like almost everyone is still in denial that he was a con man. the reputation fallout for large content creators is about to be without precedent.
media is a giant monetization of the reputation game and A Lot of people just lost A Lot of credibility thanks to their followers now losing their life savings.
Nov 10, 2022 • 31 tweets • 6 min read
What happened with Sam Bankman-Fried/Alameda/FTX and what are the near term implications, a 🧵
I'm going to try to make this as simple as possible so my friends outside of finance can understand
FTX and Alameda are two separate legal entities. It's been an open industry secret for a long time that they didn't operate as such. An Alameda whistle blower leaked their balance sheet to the press and, sure enough, it was full of FTX's ponzi coin FTT. coindesk.com/business/2022/…
Oct 5, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Despite growing up in a deeply conservative community I couldn't understand the conservative mindset for my entire childhood. How I think of Conservatism now, a 🧵
Some common themes among conservatives are 1. Humans aren't necessarily good 2. Free choice is illusory 3. Moral duties are real 4. Choices and Change have consequences 5. Nature deserves moral weight
Aug 13, 2022 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
during my undergrad i had a professor who was super interested in generational differences in attitudes towards dating and relationships. he asked the class *a lot* of @Aella_Girl style questions meant to split the room or get at the root of people's beliefs
one of class periods that sticks out to me the most involved a series of questions about people's dating preferences: 1. if you had the ability to know with >95% certainty whether a relationship would "work out" (however you define that) before it started, would you want to know?
