jmh

Karma: 1,545

jmh 28 Oct 2025 0:53 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: Petropolitan’s comment on: EU explained in 10 minutes
Other than policing the EU buildings and facilities, does that force do other things? Does it function as some supra police force that investigates throughout the EU?

jmh 26 Oct 2025 3:40 UTC
2 points
0
on: The Doomers Were Right
A lot of this reminds me about an old econ article I read in school. Ron Heiner’s The Origins of Predictable Behavior. As I recall, the basic argument is baysean in reasoning and largely gets to how social rules evolve to deal with very infrequent but highly costly, socially I want to say but also individually, actions by members of society.
The infrequency and lack of firsthand knowledge creates a lot of tensions in terms of views about the existing rules. Broadly that can fit into the view of resistance to change and “sky is falling” type fears and rhetoric that does generally slow the rate of change.

jmh 25 Oct 2025 5:34 UTC
2 points
0
on: Humanity Learned Almost Nothing From COVID-19
I’d be much happier with a post with the target I think you’re aiming at if there was some comparisons to as many other pandemic events as possible.
To be honest I don’t find the bit about global GDP loss or the lack of follow through with some planned program funding that convincing or even relevant. Most of the programs announced in 2022 were likely all suggested in 2020 or 2021 so likely more knee-jerk “we have to show the people we’re doing something” rather than well thought out. Then in 2022 and 2023 you have politics starting to dominate and since they are competing with other spending needs may well have been poor options for spending (compared to preventing future pandemics or other programs that also have some greater discounted value to social welfare and overall health). So not clear that we should take each or even any of them as good ideas we should have implemented.
Similarly, looking at global GDP from the World Bank data it’s not clear that the hit to GDB was as bad as claimed. Sure, 82T is a big number. So is 17T but over 5 years in the context of global GDP not so shocking. I think that was a case of seeing something big in isolation and so thinking it’s a bigger issue and it real is. Also, MR had a post about the impact to income in the USA and the government response. The estimate was the the lock-down reduces incomes by $15B a month. But the government support in response was something like $30B a month. A bit hard to see that situation supporting a big hit to GDP/incomes. I would agree that the USA situation is not representative of the world, but not too different from other developed countries (which I would include China in) and those are the countries that drive global GDP. The chart on the World Bank site supports the supply shock to GDP for 2020 but then basically a return to the prior growth path, or even a steeper one. So I don’t actually see that it’s an easy case to make that we had some significant, persistent negative impact to global GDP. As such, I’m not seeing how this might support any claims about human’s not having learned anything from the pandemic.
Feel like I should add one quick point as well. I think it’s a mistake to make the type of aggregate claim “humanity learned almost nothing”. That is either a claim that no one learned much or just wrong. as such I think framing the question that way is likely to lead one into a sub optimal analytic framework and so reduce whatever value such an inquire might produce.

jmh 25 Oct 2025 5:08 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Mike Evron’s comment on: Markets in Democracy: What happens when you can sell your vote?
While not quite buying votes elections in the Philippines, at least local elections, have near ubiquitous payments to potential voters by candidate—including forms with the name of the recipient (eligible voter) for each in a household (seems to help ensure that someone doesn’t front-run the payment and keep all payments when they can only cast one vote).
But when talking with people about the whole arrangement no one seems to think it actually changes results or makes anything better in terms or official or policy or effective governance. Just a small bit of extra cash candidates have to payout—and so will then want to recoup in terms of bribes or other forms of political corruption.
Not something I’ve made a study about so all anecdotal but seems to be a real world case that is similar to your thoughts. But also different in that each candidate is making a payment and no real enforcement mechanism to ensure the vote is given to the highest bidder (or whatever the buy structure might be).

jmh 5 Oct 2025 16:46 UTC
2 points
0
on: Markets in Democracy: What happens when you can sell your vote?
I don’t think selling or buying votes is a good solution. There is a reason why we have multiple forms of social institutions: they solve different types of problems using different types of tools. If you think the problems of governance and policy are solved via a market mechanism I think your first task is to show why the market solution never emerged in the first place. But I think if you want to go down that path why stop at votes, why not take David Friedman’s approach of a market anarchy where government largely doesn’t exist but private solutions provided in a competitive market setting do.

jmh 2 Sep 2025 9:52 UTC
2 points
0
AF
in reply to: Steven Byrnes’s comment on: Four ways learning Econ makes people dumber re: future AI
First, I’ll admit, after rereading, a poor/uncharitable first read of your position. Sorry for that.
But I would still suggest your complaint is about some economist rather than economics as a study or analysis tool For example, “If anything, the value of labor goes UP, not down, with population! E.g. dense cities are engines of growth!” fits very well into economics of network effects.
To the extent that the economists can only consider AI as capital that’s a flawed view, I would agree. I would suggest it is, for economic application, probably best equated with “human capital”—which is also something different than labor or capital in classic capital-labor dichotomy.
So, in the end I still see the main complaint you have is not really about economics but perhaps your experience is that economists (that you talk with) might be more prone to this blind spot/bias than others (not sure who that population might be). I don’t see that you’ve really made the case that it was the study of economics that produced this situation. Which them suggests that we don’t really have a good pointer to how to get less wrong on this front.

jmh 22 Aug 2025 1:18 UTC
LW: 9 AF: -2
−1
AF
on: Four ways learning Econ makes people dumber re: future AI
I thought the first two claims were a bit off so didn’t read much farther.
The first seems a really poor understanding and hardly steelmanning the economic arguments/views. I’d suggest looking in to the concept of human capital. While economics uses the two broad classes you seem to be locking the terms into a mostly Marxist view (but even Marx didn’t view labor a just motive force). Might also be worth noting that the concepts of land, labor and capital are from classical political economy relating to how surplus (the additional “more” the system produces from the inputs) is divided up.
I think for second bit, the Experience Curves claims are a bit poorly thought out I would suggest looking into Say’s Law about production and exchange situations. Your shift in demand has to come from somewhere and not just be something that materialized out of thin air. You might look at prior savings but I think that makes a special case type argument rather than a general one. If one sees value in Say’s Law, then the increased demand for some product/service comes from the increased production of other goods and services. In that case then resources have already been bid over to those markets (and presumably we might assume are in some semi-stable equilibrium state) so just where are the resources for the shift in supply you suggest?
I would agree that partial/limited understanding of economics (all the econ 101 stuff) will provide pretty poor analysis. I would actually go farther in saying even solid and well informed economics models will only go so far: economics can explain the economic aspects of AI and AI risks but not everything AI or AI risk. I kind of feel perhaps this is where your post is coming from—thinking simple econ 101 is used to explain AI and finding that lacking.

jmh 18 Aug 2025 4:41 UTC
11 points
4
in reply to: Garrett Baker’s comment on: Underdog bias rules everything around me
I’m not sure I agree with cousin_it’s premise but lack any good knowledge to justify a strong disagreement. However, I would note that the 300 Spartans story might be read both ways, and perhaps at the same time. If 300 Spartans can fight off the entire Persian army seems to also suggest they are incredibly strong fighters with strong strategy and tactics.
I think one can make both cases and neither necessarily refutes the other.

jmh 18 Aug 2025 4:28 UTC
2 points
−1
on: Underdog bias rules everything around me
Seems like this Underdog bias might be connected or interact with persecution complexes.

jmh 10 Aug 2025 2:58 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: Jackson Wagner’s comment on: Thomas Kwa’s Shortform
Re the dumb thought. I’ve forgotten the author, but as a teenager I was a big SciFi fan (still am actually) and read a short story with exactly this theme. Basically it was the recognition that at some point quantity >= quality. I want to say (have not fact checked myself though) that this was pretty much the USSR’s approach to fighting Germany in WWII—crappy tanks but lots of them.
(Side note, I think for whatever reason, too long a peacetime, more interest in profit than protection, the USA particularly seems to have forgotten that the stuff you use to wage a war are largely all consumables. The non consumable is the industrial base. Clearly there is a minimum cost of producing something that can do the job but much more than that is sub optimal. I am somewhat over simplifying but this also seems to be a fair characterization of where the USA-China naval relationship might be.)
Back to ICBMs, Foreign Affairs had a piece about AI’s potential impact on nuclear deterrence in general but did mention the fixed location of ICBM silos as a problem (long known and why everyone has mobile platforms). They might be considered a prime target for a first strike but the reality is they are easily monitored so the mobile platforms are the big deterrents and probably more interesting problem to solve in terms of obsoleting. But perhaps the ICBM platforms, fixed or mobile, shift to a different type role. Pure kinetic (I believe Russia did that with one of the ballistic warheads with pretty devastating results in Ukraine about a year ago) or rather than all the MIRV decoys for the armed MIRV decoys and other function for other delivery vehicles. I suspect the intercept problem with a nuclear warhead is a bit different from that of just a big mass of something dense.
So maybe perhaps obsolescence in their current function but not for some repurposed role.

jmh 31 Jul 2025 0:55 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: ProgramCrafter’s comment on: johnswentworth’s Shortform
Probably very true on one level (but the young need some of that type of random experience to even learn what they want or who they want to be or be with).
But I’m not sure that is relevant for John’s question, but perhaps have taken his query incorrectly and it’s not about just meeting someone new for some unspecified level of commitment, e.g., just a short-term hookup, but is asking about where to meet his next long-term partner.

jmh 31 Jul 2025 0:48 UTC
5 points
0
in reply to: johnswentworth’s comment on: johnswentworth’s Shortform
I’ve not done this myself* (my clubbing days were long ago now) but a few approaches:
1. If you live somewhere where some areas specialize in nightlife—bars, clubs, restaurants and even cool street scene—then just be a tourist there for a bit. You’ll see/find something that seems to fit for you.
2. Used to be “City Papers” that tended to focus on social life and what was happening during the week/month for people to learn about. So you’d hear about live music or popular DJs and where they were playing.
3. 2a. More current take I assume would be online versions of this.
4. Social apps that are about meetups (One is called that) but I suspect even FB has something along these lines, which have group you can join or are open to the public that talk about what activities, where and when the get together is occurs. So will specifically state they are NOT about any hookup possibility but other are about meeting others for more than the specific activity (activity is more about the introduction and something to so rather than the whole reason for going).
5. Last, you might check for any pub crawls going on. Some of the stops will be good clubs to check-out and even sometimes joining the crawl will offer opportunities. Particularly true if you’re good at joining in with some new group of strangers—very good social skills required as the group needs to want you to join.
* Well, I have used Meetups for getting together with others but that was language based for learning and practicing so anyone that seemed more interested in meeting and other activities were discouraged or kicked out if overly obvious.

Life of Posts?

jmh20 Jul 2025 21:04 UTC

10 points

3 comments1 min readLW link

jmh 18 Jul 2025 22:28 UTC
4 points
−1
in reply to: johnswentworth’s comment on: johnswentworth’s Shortform
What it does tell us is that someone at Kaiser Permanente thought it would be advantageous to claim, to people seeing this billboard, that Kaiser Permanente membership reduces death from heart disease by 33%.
Is that what is does tell us? The sign doesn’t make the claim you suggest—it doesn’t claim it’s reducing the deaths from heart disease, it states it’s 33% less likely to be “premature”—which is probably a weaselly term here. But it clearly is not making any claims about reducing deaths from heart disease.
You seem to be projecting the conclusion that the claim/expected interpretation is that membership reduces the deaths by 33%. But I don’t know how you’re concluding that the marketing team thought that would be the general interpretation by those seeing the sign.
While I would not be incline to take an billboard ad at face value, a more reasonable take seems to me that claiming that even with heard disease KP’s members are less likely to die earlier than expect that other with other healthcare providers. That may be a provable and true claim or it might be more “puffing” and everyone will play with just how “premature” is going to be measured.
Whether or not it’s corporate stupidity, I think that might be a separate question but understanding exactly what results such an ad is supposed to be producing will matter a lot here. Plus, there is the old adage about no one every going bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer—and I suspect that might go double in the case of medical/healthcare consumption.

jmh 11 Jul 2025 14:02 UTC
3 points
9
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Lessons from the Iraq War for AI policy
Yes, the 80s would have been when the Iraq-Iran war happened, which I mention, so I don’t quite understand the link to the wiki. Maybe you’re emphasizing the “Very likely never existed.” but that was more about the claims used for the invasion that Iraq currently had large and dangerous stockpiles on hand at the time. None were found so either they didn’t really exist then or were well hidden/could be quickly dismantled without a trace. I suspect the former would be more likely—though there is a lot of empty space and finding needles in haystacks is hard.

jmh 11 Jul 2025 0:56 UTC
6 points
−5
in reply to: davekasten’s comment on: Lessons from the Iraq War for AI policy
I’m one of those here that remember seeing the news loop of the plane hitting the tower and the building collapsing.
It was a defining moment and I think fixed in everyone’s mind the required response (other than it wasn’t quite clear who the target should be), just a Pearl Harbor was with WWII.
To some extent the “lies about WMD” is a bit of a misdirection/political spin. It is true that no stockpiles of biologic, chemical or development of nuclear weapons were ever found. Very likely never existed. But we can say the same about Iran today. At one point we could have said the same about North Korea. We do know that Iraq developed, stockpiled and used chemical (and I think some biological) weapons in the Iraq-Iran war. We also know they had a nuclear program (which I don’t think was monitored by the UN until after the war and Iraq was forced to dismantle it). So I think concerns about WMD were quite legitimate even if not quite current state reality.
And yes, Kerry nearly won and the whole “where are the WMD” (including using the old Wendy’s commercial “Where’s the beaf?” line) was frequently mentioned after the war and in the campaigns.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of the potential for some emergence of AI related policy stances with regard to any AI moment of realization as it were (something hits the AI fan). On that I might be more inclined to point to Higg’s Crisis and Leviathan line of thinking. Yes, we’ll see certain policy positions elevated but how beneficial that ultimate proves I’m less sure.

jmh 17 Jun 2025 17:37 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: A Straightforward Explanation of the Good Regulator Theorem
Perhaps I’m off on this but wanted to just ask. How much of that term being a contradiction is driven by the lack of a good underlying model of something. I’ll use the house temperature example here.
We have a very good model (by assumption here) of energy transmission from the exterior to the interior. We have a controller (thermostat) that only measures external features, say outside temp and maybe light and a time duration for when and how long to run either the air conditioner or heating. With a good model (and probably a good initialization at installation) that regulator seems like it would do a good job of hitting the defined internal temp target without needing to monitor the internal temp.
That certainly fails the GRT on the grounds it’s a lot more complicated than it needs to be as measuring the internal temp and then activating the AC or heating is pretty simple and straightforward. But having a good model seems to fit well with the Shannon entropy aspects—the model itself tells us what is needed about the internal temp so monitoring/sampling that variable is not necessary.
Is the complicated regulation no an open loop control case? Or is it still something of a contradiction in terms in your view?

jmh 16 Jun 2025 15:23 UTC
2 points
0
on: Intelligence Is Not Magic, But Your Threshold For “Magic” Is Pretty Low
It’s an interesting post and on some levels seems both correct and, to me at least, somewhat common sense.
Still I have a small tingle in the back of my head asking “is this magic really from intelligence or something else?” Or perhaps intelligence (perhaps not all that exceptional) and something else. It seems like in a number of the cases we’re presented a somewhat narrow frame of the situation. If the magic is not highly correlated with, or better a function largely of, intelligence I wonder exactly how meaningful this is regarding ASI.

jmh 3 Jun 2025 22:02 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: The Value Proposition of Romantic Relationships
Perhaps this is a bit of mirror image but accepted even just being myself actually included not opening up about some things so feeling safe not being vulnerable.

jmh 27 May 2025 15:48 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: David Corbitt’s comment on: Orienting Toward Wizard Power
I’m not sure I’m understanding your claim here. I don’t think you’re suggesting a “if you build it they will come” type result from being in a dominant position. But I also don’t quite get why being in a dominant position in one space has much (other that deep pockets) really impacts the success in doing things others are not doing—or leading a group in doing things others are not leading that group.