I am curious about which conversations with Wei Dai prompted you to write this essay, if the conversation is public and it seems reasonable to link it.
It was an offline conversation.
(I am slightly confused about the “Talents” title, which doesn’t seem like the natural handle with which I’d want to refer back to this post later)
My guess is that it’s referring to talents in the sense of money, and also in the sense of ability (does having a lot of money imply that you’re good at producing “genuinely valuable goods and services that one might want to see more of” or that you’re good at “complicity in violence”).
It was an offline conversation.
My guess is that it’s referring to talents in the sense of money, and also in the sense of ability (does having a lot of money imply that you’re good at producing “genuinely valuable goods and services that one might want to see more of” or that you’re good at “complicity in violence”).