Patrick Ward

To be somebody or to do something…To be or to do? Which way will you go?

If you are starting company right now or recently. Seriously look at whether should reincorporate because of changes to qsbs that go into effect today

von Neumann’s game theoretic logic of nuclear deterrence was not entirely wrong—in some cases, it’s exactly correct

Part of why it's so important to have a hard line about absolutely no violence at a protest for any reason - even in response to govt violence - is that there are a lot of people who don't care about your cause but want an excuse to destroy things.

What happened when the U.S. sent 400,000 Mexican workers back to Mexico in the 1930s? The employment rate of native workers went down noticeably as a direct result. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

The less you have to learn things the more learning things becomes an edge, and I think that’ll stay true for quite a while at least

This is one of the best biotech 'request for startups' I've seen. Virtually all of these are also on my personal list of companies I'd like to help / support / invest in.

Stupid policy passes 100-0 bc it seems to benefit everyone - workers get more, businesses don’t have to pay for it. But the carve-out costs billions that could 2x the EITC for all low-wage workers, not just tipped ones. soundbites over sound policy, as per usual :(

Cato published my review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.

@KSurkov @NathanpmYoung But any series of events that could conceivably lead to that is not.

@patrickdward @NathanpmYoung "Everyone dies" seems pretty discrete and binary to me

"the operation is very likely to go okay on your son" "what do you mean, 'very likely'?" "well it's hard to know with operations, there is a lot of disagreement about the probabilities" "what probabilities do people give?" "well personally I think this operation is likely to succeed. some people think it's certain, others think this operation never works. among top surgeons, the median view is that it goes bad about 5% of the time" "wait, this operation goes wrong maybe 5% of the time?" "that is one view, as I say, it's hard to know" "and what does 'goes bad' mean" "it means death. Or worse" "DEATH. You're telling me the median top surgeon thinks there's a 5% chance operation will kill my son." "yes, or worse. but that is the median view. there's a pretty broad range of opinion on the subject." "okay, but the operation is necessary, right?" "no. but it might be extremely beneficial. It might improve your son's quality of life by two or ten or a hundred fold. It's very hard to know." "can we delay it? can he have this operation next year?" "we are really quite excited about doing this operation now. we think it would be good for our hospital and we reckon we need to gain experience in doing this kind of procedure. otherwise the expertise might go elsewhere. also if it works we want to help many other people soon" "so you want to do it on my son?" "yes. he's a great test candidate" "now?" "we still have a few kinks to work out, but as soon as possible, if that's okay" To me, this is the situation we are in with AI. Except it isn't someone's son, it is everyone's son. Everyone's daughter. All of us. Maybe the operation goes well, and we have far better quality of life. Cure disease, massive wealth, new experiences. I think most people underrate how good this looks. Maybe it goes badly and we die. AI researchers think there is a 5% chance it kills us all. Thousands were surveyed. The typical one thought it was 5%, some thought lower, some higher. The AI CEOs have basically all agreed with this (or thought it was riskier). I am not arguing that "AI is good" or "AI is bad" or even "we need to take a balanced approach". I argue it is worth paying attention to. Worth understanding. If someone were operating on my child and said they didn't know how it would go, I'd want to understand the operation. That's why I want to understand AI.

!! Sad the US line has been flat so long and is projected to decline.

Purely individual decisions often produce the same paradox. Some forecast better than others, and improvement is always possible. But misprediction—and, with it, surprise and regret—are unavoidable.

In addition to these obviously correct points, Trump’s demand for ideological diversity at Harvard makes one more carryover mistake from DEI: assuming ideological diversity in academia should be achieved through self-similar diversity within each institution. In any healthy market-based system, inter-institutional variation will account for much of the overall diversity on any important dimension. It won’t all appear as intra-institutional diversity.

@devahaz 100% correct

This whole thread is people not knowing the difference between fine dining Mexican restaurants and expensive Mexican restaurants that charge $24 for guac and $35 for an enchilada plate

The absolute hardest thing to convince people of is that the optimal amount of fraud in a system is not zero. Obviously it would be ideal if there were no fraud, but at some point the cost of catching it outweighs the benefits

The timing of the anti-neoliberal story just doesn't add up. Wage growth stagnated before globalization took off. When globalization took off, working-class men's wages started growing again.

Free trade didn't destroy the Rust Belt. It was labor unions. "The Rust Belt’s manufacturing decline isn’t primarily about jobs going to Mexico. It’s about jobs going to Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee."

I’ve got an article out in the Washington Post today explaining how the South is doing so well in manufacturing and why neither party wants to talk about it. The #1 auto exporting state isn’t Michigan, it’s Alabama. How did that happen? 1/4 (link below)

@devahaz The mistake seems to be here. While it may *feel* like an existential crisis to progressives used to continually winning, it hardly *is* an existential crisis. x.com/epkaufm/status…

@devahaz That seems right. One thing to look at is substantial support among republicans for social safety net, environment, gay rights.

I reject the bulk of this premise. Many on the Right mistake a backlash to a number of largely fringe views on the Left as backlash to broader liberal ideas that have become accepted as normal and good by most. And they’re speedrunning a similar path to backlash. (cont)