~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (25)

Here is the audio, video, and transcript, along with almost thirty minutes of audience questions, filmed in Miami.  Here is the episode summary: Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, including why it’s a concept we still need today, why Peter’s against Calvinism (and rationalism), whether the Old Testament should […] The post My excellent Conversation with Peter Thiel...

Here is a very good article by Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine.  Excerpt: The contours of the new progress movement stretch from the Human Progress project at the libertarian Cato Institute to the “eco-modernist” initiatives at the Breakthrough Institute and the Pritzker Innovation Fund. Four relatively new groups at the forefront of the pro-progress forces […] The post The progress in Progress Studies appeared...

It’s long been argued that the means of production influence social, cultural and psychological processes. Rice farming, for example, requires complex irrigation systems under communal management and intense, coordinated labor. Thus, it has been argued that successful rice farming communities tend to develop people with collectivist orientations, and cultural ways of thinking that emphasize group […] The post Cultivating Minds: The Psychological Consequences of...

Yes, I will be doing another Conversation with him.  Here is the first one, in Norway with a live audience.  I am very much enjoying his new book Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist.  Slavoj is one of the very few CWT guests (can you guess the others?) who can handle pretty much any […] The post What should I ask Slavoj Žižek?...

Here is the transcript, audio, and video.  Here is the episode summary: But might technological advances and good old human resilience allow kids to adapt more easily than he thinks? Jonathan joined Tyler to discuss this question and more, including whether left-wingers or right-wingers make for better parents, the wisest person Jonathan has interacted with, […] The post My contentious Conversation with Jonathan Haidt...

Judge Kaplan: A man willing to flip a coin as to the continued existence of life on earth. Mr. Bankman-Fried knew that Alameda was spending customer funds on risky investments, political contributions and Bahamas real estate. The funds were not his to use — Inner City Press (@innercitypress) March 28, 2024 That is via Shiraz.  […] The post Be careful what you announce about...

That is the title of the new Judith Butler book, focusing mostly on trans issues.  To be clear, on most practical issues concerning trans, I side with the social conservatives.  For instance, I don’t think trans women have a right to compete in women’s weightlifting contests.  And I have not been happy with how many […] The post *Who’s Afraid of Gender?* appeared first...

Nnow though it was generally assumed in intellectual circles that the best was yet to be, Bvalltu and his friends were convinced that the crest of the wave had already occurred many centuries ago.  To most men, if course, the decade before the war had seemed better and more civilized than any earlier age.  In […] The post *Star Maker*, by Olaf Stapledon appeared...

Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Here is my corresponding (and much longer and more complicated) post about the Left.  Model this difference! The post Who are currently the most influential thinkers/intellectuals on the Right? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to Dismalist. The right wants Big Boss Dad ... by CytotoxicIn reply to Moneo. The “woke mind virus” strikes again! by CHIn...

As many MR readers will know, I don’t think the concept of AGI is especially well-defined.  Can the thing dribble a basketball “with smarts”?  Probably not.  Then its intelligence isn’t general.  You might think that kind of intelligence “doesn’t matter,” and maybe I agree, but that is begging the question.  It is easier and cleaner […] The post Claude 3 Opus and AGI appeared...

This study investigates the efficacy of an AI-based ethical advisor using the GPT-4 model. Drawing from a pool of ethical dilemmas published in the New York Times column “The Ethicist”, we compared the ethical advice given by the human expert and author of the column, Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah, with AI-generated advice. The comparison is […] The post GPT as ethical advisor appeared first...

I will be doing a Conversation with him.  No description of Michael quite does him justice, but here is Wikipedia: Michael Aaron Nielsen (born January 4, 1974) is a quantum physicist, science writer, and computer programming researcher living in San Francisco. In 1998, Nielsen received his PhD in physics from the University of New Mexico. In 2004, he was recognized as […] The post What should I ask Michael Nielsen?...

I will be doing a Conversation with him, based in part around his new book The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.  On Coleman more generally, here is Wikipedia: Coleman Cruz Hughes (born February 25, 1996) is an American writer and podcast host. He was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and […] The post What should I ask Coleman Hughes?...

It’s interesting to think of Mill’s argument as it relates to Hayek. So Mill is arguing you can see more than just the local information. So keep in mind, when Mill wrote, every society that he knew of, at least treated women very poorly, oppressed women. Women, because they were physically weaker, were at a […] The post John Stuart Mill on women, as...

It is very long, very detailed, and very good.  Interesting throughout!  Excerpt: Dealing with the third conversation is harder. There is place where I feel Tyler is misinterpreting a few statements, in ways I find extremely frustrating and that I do not see him do in other contexts, and I pause to set the record […] The post Zvi Mowshowitz covers my podcast with...

It was meant as an insult, implying that Mises – a marginalist – was trying to salvage 19th century liberal economics from the collectivist attacks of the Marxist left and the Nazi right, hence the “neo” moniker being attached. One of the main promoters of this use was Othmar Spann, a rival of Mises on […] The post From the beginning, “neoliberalism” was an...

East India Company founded — 1600 Shakespeare – Hamlet published 1603 England starting to settle America – 1607 in Virginia, assorted, you could add Harvard here as well King James Bible – 1611 The beginnings of steady economic growth – 1620 (Greg Clark, JPE) Rule of law ideas, common law ideas, Sir Edward Coke – […] The post What happened in 17th century England...

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with her.  Here is from Wikipedia: Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson […] The post What should I ask Marilynne Robinson?...

Let us say you favor policy X, and take steps to see that policy X comes about. Under many conditions, people who favor non-X will take additional countervailing steps to oppose X.  And in that case your actions in favor of X, on average, will lead to nothing.  In the meantime, you and also your […] The post Social improvements that don’t create countervailing...

Adrian Wooldridge has an excellent Bloomberg column on this topic, promoting the relevance of Thomas Mann, and here is one excerpt: In the book [Magic Mountain], Castorp falls in with two intellectuals who live in the village of Davos below his sanitorium: an Italian humanist called Lodovico Settembrini and a Jewish-born cosmopolitan called Leo Naphta […] The post Settembrini and the continuing relevance of...

New episode with @tylercowen. We talk about Tyler's implicit theology, literature in translation, Jonathan Swift, Peter Thiel, The Sopranos, NGDP targeting and a whole lot more. Links below — pic.twitter.com/mRQyyAesa4 — dan (@dnschlz) January 15, 2024 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-hx8Z8clI4 Spotify: spoti.fi/47yJdK9 Apple: https://apple.co/3S1hxI1 Dan Schulz is a very good interviewer. The post Tyler Cowen on Undertone podcast appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsI would ask Tyler when...

Maybe so: We administer a Turing Test to AI Chatbots. We examine how Chatbots behave in a suite of classic behavioral games that are designed to elicit characteristics such as trust, fairness, risk-aversion, cooperation, \textit{etc.}, as well as how they respond to a traditional Big-5 psychological survey that measures personality traits. ChatGPT-4 exhibits behavioral and […] The post Are chatbots better than we are?...

That is the new book by Blake Butler, a memoir.  It is no spoiler to tell you that his wife Molly takes her own life at a young age.  I don’t know of any better argument for social conservatism than this book.  And perhaps suicide should be regarded as a sin, not something to get […] The post *Molly* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

Here is the link, here is the episode summary: On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including the most popular and underrated episodes, the origins of the show as an occasional event series, the most difficult guests to prep for, the […] The post 2023 CWT retrospective episode appeared first...