Process knowledge

From Programmable Mutter

He like Dan Wang’s book Breakneck

Breakneck is about America nearly as much as it is about China. The book is fascinated with how America and China resemble each other, their sharp differences, and how both help fuel their mutual incomprehension. I imagine that most responses* will focus on two big questions: how America’s misunderstanding of China fuels geopolitical confrontation, and how America’s misunderstanding of itself leads it to miss out on material abundance. 

However, the best reading of the book, in my biased opinion, starts not with these questions, but the alternative perspective that lies behind Dan’s answers. The biggest lesson I took from Breakneck was not about China, or the U.S., but the importance of “process knowledge.” 

Xu Guo on Dalio and MMT

Chinese discussion 

Dalio is a star but Guo argues (and I agree) that he’s wrong on macroeconomics

 Economic debate continues to simmer in China between deficit hawks and doves, as Beijing lifts its deficit ratio to record highs and embarks upon its biggest fiscal stimulus campaign since the Global Financial Crisis.

Partisans on either side of China's fiscal policy debate have drawn inspiration from heterodox macroeconomic opinion derived from overseas sources.
Chinese deficit hawks find support for their arguments against fiscal spending in the popular works of storied hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, who contends that excess debt accumulation inevitably results in financial crises.
Doves, on the other hand, are making recourse to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to support their arguments in favour of deficit spending as a safe means of sustaining the Chinese economy.
This divide is best embodied by a vicious attack against Ray Dalio's works that was recently launched by Xu Gao (徐高), chief economist at Bank of China International.
Xu cites MMT in arguing that China needs to dial up its debt levels, instead of pursue a "beautiful deleveraging" as prescribed by Dalio.

JK Galbraith lessons

From NC

Creating a static website

Helpful guide !

Haters guide to AI

Ed Zitron compiles his thoughts

Good journalism is making sure that history is actively captured and appropriately described and assessed, and it's accurate to describe things as they currently are as alarming.

And I am alarmed.

Alarm is not a state of weakness, or belligerence, or myopia. My concern does not dull my vision, even though it's convenient to frame it as somehow alarmist, like I have some hidden agenda or bias toward doom. I profoundly dislike the financial waste, the environmental destruction, and, fundamentally, I dislike the attempt to gaslight people into swearing fealty to a sickly and frail psuedo-industry where everybody but NVIDIA and consultancies lose money.

…

I believe the AI bubble is deeply unstable, built on vibes and blind faith, and when I say "the AI bubble," I mean the entirety of the AI trade.

And it's alarmingly simple, too.

But this isn’t going to be saccharine, or whiny, or simply worrisome. I think at this point it’s become a little ridiculous to not see that we’re in a bubble. We’re in a god damn bubble, it is so obvious we’re in a bubble, it’s been so obvious we’re in a bubble, a bubble that seems strong but is actually very weak, with a central point of failure.

I may not be a contrarian, but I am a hater. I hate the waste, the loss, the destruction, the theft, the damage to our planet and the sheer excitement that some executives and writers have that workers may be replaced by AI — and the bald-faced fucking lie that it’s happening, and that generative AI is capable of doing so.

And so I present to you — the Hater’s Guide to the AI bubble, a comprehensive rundown of arguments I have against the current AI boom’s existence. Send it to your friends, your loved ones, or print it out and eat it.  

COVID is not over

June 2025 update

Twitter thread on long COVID with links to papers

The problem with free riders

Research

I’m of the opinion that exploitation is innate.  Parasites and predators are two distinct forms. Free riding is parasitic, primarily, and natural. 

Organisms try to take advantage of the work done by other organisms to create order from entropy… herbivores take advantage of plants, carnivores take advantage of herbivores…

Ancient wisdom for modern times

An essay on some recent books

What does it mean to live sustainably in a finite world?

The decline of the west

Cognitive dissonance

the discourse had and has been seized by what people want to believe, or what oligarchs want people to believe: what pays, not what is true. There are no consequences for being wrong, and no self awareness.

More Covid

it’s really depressing for me

Who broke the internet

Cory Doctorow fingers the perps

the internet didn't turn to shit because of the "great forces of history," or "network effects," or "returns to scale." Rather, the Great Enshittening is the result of specific policy choices, made in living memory, by named individuals, who were warned at the time that this would happen, and they did it anyway.

Best current information on efficacy of masks

Sentinel Intelligence 

Here’s the bottom line: Masks work. We’re going to examine all the evidence that they work, why you need them, and where you can get the best.

…

A major investigation on masks in Clinical Microbiology Reviews examined 100 published articles on masks and found that when they’re “correctly and consistently worn,” masks and especially N95 respirators are “effective in reducing transmission of respiratory diseases.” The authors explain why N95 masks work. As they point out, “respirators are not simple sieves,” meaning they can easily trap viral particles 65-125 nanometers in diameter.

…

evidence also shows that masks work and respirators work better.

…

You still need a mask for a range of reasons, as explained here. Vaccines reduce your risk of Long Covid by roughly 62 percent, but even that mediocre protection wanes over time, requiring boosters once or even twice a year. As the studies show, it’s no trifling matter. It’s a condition characterized by lasting damage to multiple organ systems, and patients have put their pain and quality of life on par with advanced terminal cancer. The mountains of research have prompted many experts to describethe result as “the greatest mass disabling event in human history,” with an oncoming health crisis “so large as to be unfathomable.”

…

CDC’s own journal, Emerging and Infectious Diseases:

In summary, it is likely that a substantial proportion of patients surviving COVID-19 will experience long-term symptoms requiring prolonged care, even after mild to moderate disease. These symptoms might negatively affect patients’ quality of life and represent an additional burden for healthcare services and social security.

That was published in March of 2022