There are many hyper-credentialized, gatekept systems but most of them don't share the feature of producing structurally worse outcomes as literary fiction. I believe this system is already selling the seeds of its own demise.

A small group of agents hold most of the power, and the system has confused power for taste. This has also, in my experience, led to the outlets that hold the most power using that power to push agendas instead of seeking out the best literature. I do not believe this can persist indefinitely.

A game-theoretic model of why AI automation might be a trap: each firm's rational choice to automate erodes the aggregate demand all firms depend on. The Nash equilibrium is slow-motion collapse.

Tariffs continue to be a major topic of debate. The author examines what happened to countries that closed their borders and protected domestic industry with the promise of strength and self-sufficiency. The historical record is surprisingly consistent.

When Saks Fifth Avenue put out feelers to sell off pieces of BergdorfGoodman, I took it as a very bad sign.

Bergdorf is the crown jewel in that portfolio. Anytime you see a corporation pawning off its winners to fund its losers, they're in very, very deep trouble.

I'm working on an app to make testing available to all brick and mortar retailers (proofpod.ai).

The most difficult technical challenge has been designing a pipeline to fully automate choosing test & control locations using synthetic difference-in-differences.

A phrase I liked to describe what we're doing with LLMs is "building a personal panopticon". The benefits are immense but you're placing a huge bet on the landlord of the tower.

I've taken one of the electric roll-on/roll-off ferries that cross from Denmark to Sweden over the Øresund strait. Zero fumes, zero vibration, incredibly quiet. Awesome to see this tech being used for longer crossings.

James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State is a useful lens here. Scott argues that modern states flattened human complexity into legible categories so they could govern: surnames, maps, censuses, standardized occupations. You lose a lot of nuance, but in theory the trade-off is that the state can then build institutions that serve the public.

AI feels like a more extreme version of that flattening, but without the civic purpose that justified it. You end up with legibility without legitimacy. That’s the part I think we don’t have a good framework for yet.

Thanks I'll pick it up and finally read it. I've had it on my to-read forever but have never got around to it.

If you already know how to touch type, I recommend using software to mirror your keyboard when the spacebar is held down. I lacked the use of my dominant arm for a few months while recovering from an injury, and by week 3, mirroring no longer required conscious thought.

Muscle mass is lost quickly during detraining, but the additional myonuclei gained when someone puts on muscle are retained for much longer, potentially years. Myonuclei govern protein synthesis, so when training resumes, muscle returns more quickly.