Tyler Cowen Transcript
Auto-generated as per usual
00:00.00
cactuschu
This is a question I borrowed from Robin Hanson. What is the most important problem you could be working on? interesting. So actually this is quite related. I heard you on another podcast say when I see an application from Ontario, Canada I get excited. Why is that?
00:03.87
Tyler
Finding talent and I am working on it.
00:19.40
Tyler
Well, mainly just empirical regularities. It's not anything I was expecting but what I'm observing is a lot of children of immigrants to Ontario and I use the word Ontario on purpose not Toronto. Ah there's a lot of talent there. So. People will start the interview by saying like they live in Toronto and I well, where do you really live and they parents had barber hour or something and they've just racked up this remarkable ah record of being teenagers and seeming to be super smart and talented and enthusiastic so they're so young I mean I don't think I could. Call them successes yet. But it's a group of people I'm super enthusiastic about.
01:00.60
cactuschu
Right? I think that ah one stat that just absolutely floors me is that 92% of the national computer science finalists ah in I think 2018 were from basically 0.0 one percent of Canada's land bas
01:17.59
cactuschu
It's from this. This's just like a tiny square around a little bit north of Toronto and yeah, this is incredibly fascinating to me. Do you have any hypotheses on why that is?
01:17.68
Tyler
Um, that's incredible.
01:27.80
Tyler
Well, it's more centered in Ontario than I would have expected so the rest of Canada is hardly an intellectual wasteland. It could just be partly an artificial clustering effect but I would have thought well there'll be 1 or 2 from outside of Alberta. Or something. Well we have 1 winner in Vancouver of a different nature. Ah really no applications from Quebec that I can think of and clustering really matters. It is a lesson I learn again and again and again and I feel that I've learned it. But in fact I never quite have internalized. It.
02:01.83
cactuschu
So I'm actually from this area I'm sure you know and it's quite interesting because what I observe is I think of a transient period. Where the amount of institutional trust and the distribution of that institutional trust is just right? and I think it's related to what you said about immigrants very much the children of immigrants in this area because this is actually something that came completely unintuitively to me. When I'm speaking with immigrants in the United States I think there is a kind of there's a kind of grabbing for land or grabbing for whatever can keep them afloat and that usually attaches them to legacy institutions in a way where the security in Toronto. Kind of counterintuitively makes it so that you don't have that grabbing towards legacy universities say or legacy businesses brands and so on that makes it so that there's a kind of innovation that's open here. That's not that it's not open there.
03:04.95
Tyler
You know I have concluded that the Toronto area has become North America's third city in a very significant way and excuse me. I'm not sure this is news to a lot of those who live there. But I think the rest of the United States hasn't quite woken up to this yet.
03:26.15
cactuschu
So what? exactly do you mean by? Third City and.
03:29.13
Tyler
Well, there's New York and the Los Angeles bay area is obviously quite significant. Not really a city but you would count it as a highly meaningful cluster. So I suppose you would have to say fourth. But if you just want to go somewhere.
03:50.00
Tyler
Excuse me. But if you just want to go somewhere, meet with smart people and learn something about science. Be entertained. Go to a film festival here. An excellent concert. Whatever ah toronto is a major north american site to do that. And several decades ago it was considered this very boring midwestern city and it started first by having excellent food and then it's moved into artificial intelligence and many other areas and it's just one of the best places to go period flat out.
04:21.20
cactuschu
So I'm sorry I'm just gonna cut this up but I need to take just a few seconds to deal with them. To deal with the background noise I'll be right back. So.
04:27.76
Tyler
Sure sorry.
04:36.47
Tyler
A.
04:51.34
cactuschu
Are you all right? I am back. I'm very sorry that something that I think really strikes me about your and some other people's approach to talent like teal is I mean I'm going to take another quote from that same podcast. This is the econ talk podcast. Ah.
04:54.30
Tyler
Um, don't worry.
05:08.31
Tyler
Ah.
05:08.39
cactuschu
That you're saying this podcast is a great filter and I don't want discussion of these ideas in the New York Times basically and this seems to me like an incredibly important observation. That essentially means that less is more when you're trying to promote things in many ways.
05:24.80
Tyler
I agree with that so you want a small number of evaluators in some highly critical processes and that means you can't have too high a number of applications. So emergent ventures do not advertise. Maybe I shouldn't even be talking about this with you after all, you have ties to Ontario. How many people are in Ontario? Maybe apply tomorrow but you get something more ardandal when you're limiting the scope of what you're doing and I think you can do much better on talent picking. Rather than have everything by formula and committee, you have a small number of creators or craft producers who've been doing something for a long time like how in France in small villages. You know people are making cheese by hand.
06:01.10
cactuschu
What do you mean by artisanal?
06:17.30
Tyler
And it might be the world's best cheese as opposed to a wisconsin cheese factory which is probably actually pretty good cheddar but the peak is going to be capped right? The ceiling is low and with talent selection. You don't want it all to be like Wisconsin cheddar.
06:27.78
cactuschu
Right.
06:33.86
Tyler
You want quite a bit of it to be like French unpasteurized Jesus made on a small scale. So don't be you know don't be too well known at doing it I worry about this In fact.
06:38.44
cactuschu
Hum.
06:44.19
cactuschu
Yeah, this is quite interesting because my interpretation of it was actually somewhat different. I think I think it's related, which is that essentially there are people who will try to subvert any metric who will not actually be competent in the ways that you want them to be competent.
06:47.64
Tyler
If.
07:04.70
cactuschu
But we'll have to put on that paint if you put it in certain areas and I and I see the New York Times as king of the peak of these areas.
07:10.64
Tyler
I agree with that too. But I think there's another mechanism. There's a whole bunch of applicants even now who seem quite mediocre and they're not trying to subvert anything. They just have you know weak ideas and you can tell they're not even gaming the system.
07:22.17
cactuschu
And
07:29.49
Tyler
Other than just by filling out the forms. So I think both happen.
07:34.81
cactuschu
Right? That's actually maybe I should take this ah as a kind of point for reevaluation but this is really where I want to start the hand of rising action of the podcast is to me. There's this. Style of going through and building things of building institutions. That's very much popular in the United States that's very much associated maybe with libertarianism now with effective altruism and quite frankly I think it's something that you personally.
08:09.91
cactuschu
Ah, you personally use an approach which is this kind of I have an article coming up called effective altruism is non-confrontational altruism which is essentially looking at building alternatives right? saying we want to ah we want to? ah. Creates things using a process that is just different from the legacy process and you know what the only way to do that is we're just going to start something completely on our own but to me that ah there are certain attractors certain power centers and we can go over specific ones of each of them and that this is. The most important these are almost the or these are almost maybe sixty seventy percent of what I see as our society getting wrong that are specifically based on these power attractors and that quite frankly, they're power attractors specifically because.
08:56.42
Tyler
Um, yeah.
09:05.69
cactuschu
Of The kind of negative incentives that they create right? So examples of this obviously include the government. But I think certainly legacy media is a certain kind of prestige media. This kind of status seeking that happens in those areas is both The reason. Why they're so poor at doing what many people believe to be their jobs aka informing people providing accurate information and simultaneously why they are so powerful and why they gain the ability to obstruct So when people go off and they build alternative institutions and say like okay here is my own media source. Here is my own way of doing science funding. To me this kind of obscures the point which is that you have these organizations which are actually quite optimal on something else other than let's say doing science or informing people but are in fact. Capable of basically taking all of the oxygen up in the room precisely because they're optimized for taking up all the oxygen in the room. Anyways, this is I know this is ah quite a long and quite a long preamble for a podcast but okay.
10:10.97
Tyler
Well I think I understand your point but here's my worry I see a lot of people. Maybe they're people where I would agree with them on a whole bunch of things but they fundamentally devote their energies to attacking what you're calling the status Attractors. And I just observe empirically it it often makes them stupid or or less effective that there's so many bad things you can attack that if that becomes your focus in some funny Way. You end up co-opted by the system, you become repetitive, you become boring and I see that happen to a lot of the critics I think they should. Work more on concrete problems of building things and they'll stay more vital, more involved and ultimately attract more people.
10:52.12
cactuschu
That's very interesting because I don't know if this is just the grass is greener on the other side or maybe grasses are less kaine on the other side. But I think that's especially politically what many of these emerging movements are.
10:55.41
Tyler
E.
11:11.36
cactuschu
Have a critique of basically libertarianism and many libertarian ideas I agree with but certainly they would say look you've tried to build these other institutions you've tried to just leave it up to the markets and so on not you specifically, but ah, people of the Libertarian bent particularly within the Republican Party. And you know it's just led to more of this kind of cultural homogenization more of basically enforcement of Dogma via Legal means and libertarianism has been the part of the coalition. That's not been very effective.
11:44.51
Tyler
Well I'm not sure that today we have cultural homogenization but I would agree with the general point libertarianism is not going to win or succeed. I view the battle as just western civilization staying on a track where there's some growth and progress and that's relevant.
11:49.29
cactuschu
Me.
12:03.95
Tyler
Margin on that I think you could fairly say it's not clear how we're doing as of late. But if you judge it by some kind of version of Paul Ryan libertarianism going to become more prominent in an actually effective way I mean I've always thought the chance of that was. Essentially 0.
12:25.72
cactuschu
I Want to return to that observation that you made that essentially many of the critics of the institutions kind of deteriorate themselves. They themselves experience a kind of decadence. Ah, what is an example of this? And by example I mean basically an idea I don't need you to call out a specific person but let's say like on this topic they become having the conversation. The vague conversation has become something that's deteriorated.
12:51.20
Tyler
Well if you look at a lot of the Idw people, many of whom I know from whom I'm friends with, I think they're super smart and I fully see the period of their effectiveness which has been extreme and I would respect that.
12:54.76
cactuschu
M.
13:08.30
Tyler
But at the end of the day it hasn't all worked out very well you know from the intellectual side so that would be an example I would cite without getting too personal but still willing to be specific to some degree and a lot of it would be like the followers and hangers on in addition to the leaders. Ah, but it seems to me the force of all that is quite spent and some of them have ended up intellectually in what I would call really very bad places.
13:31.57
cactuschu
Right? That's quite interesting because I think many people who I interact with and who listen to this podcast look at the id Idw and see it as an insufficient focus on basically criticism or not necessarily criticism. But on strategy. Which I think would be quite different and how this manifests is basically the Idw is actually quite libertarian in a way it talks about is very much focused on free debate and open discussion. The phrase free market of ideas gets tossed around a lot. And I think that this would extend with a kind of populist critique of libertarianism that says Libertarian and libertarianism is just a self-defeating strategy and where I really want to drive. This conversation is essentially looking at some of that fundamental strategy.
14:19.99
Tyler
No.
14:29.89
cactuschu
I I think that in many cases. There's a book that's becoming more popularized ah by Marc Andreessen and many others in this vague heterodox space is the machiavellians right? Have you heard of that book? Are you familiar with it? Yes.
14:43.67
Tyler
Where burn him. Yeah I know burn him I read some like burn him first I don't know I was a teenager a long time ago. But I've never loved to burn him. I think it's way too diffuse and not sufficiently analytical or empirical.
14:51.80
cactuschu
Great. Oh interesting.
15:00.45
Tyler
And if you kind of know the thought of his time to me. It's all much less impressive than a lot of it has started to seem to people today. So I don't put people on your need burner.
15:06.84
cactuschu
Right? I have many critiques of I have many critiques of the managerial revolution I think that book is much is very much overplayed and that there's very specific more empirical analyses that you can do. That's kind of one of the themes of the show. But. The reason why I think that book is the Machbellians I should say is a very good place to get us started is that I think political discussion or political competition itself is one of these anti anti-optimized areas right? So they're areas that are optimized for something, they're areas that are just. Not very good at anything in particular and then there are areas that are basically they're optimized for something but that something is very much obscured from even quite smart people who think about it and I think politics is one of those areas where you have the Idw I think is an excellent example of this just being not quite.
15:53.54
Tyler
Sure.
16:04.66
cactuschu
Certain about how to actually attack the problems and when they do try to attack the problems they fail and they don't really course correct and ah, let's actually just branch off of that. Why do why? Do you think that they ah do not actually course correct despite I think what we can both agree as. Suboptimal at least results.
16:23.78
Tyler
Yeah I don't have the inside knowledge to answer that with any reasonable certainty but it seems to me attitudinally they're not actually that libertarian that they're very attracted or many of them conspiracy theories and even though the conspiracy theory might target oppressive government.
16:33.89
cactuschu
Interesting.
16:43.26
Tyler
In some way that superficially sounds Libertarian I think it tends to collapse into non or Anti-libertarian Habits attitudes, policy recommendations, declines of trust that like lower the efficacy of markets and State Capacity. So ah, mostly. I'm critical of conspiratorial ways of thinking and those have become way too popular in Idw. Maybe they did because of social media I don't know. Maybe they did because of the personality features of some of the protagonists. That's plausible but I couldn't quite vouch for that being true. Those would be some possible hypotheses.
17:22.48
cactuschu
That's actually quite similar to the answer I would give and and the answer I would give is essentially that they try to work backwards from the picture that's presented of them instead of forwards from basically ground level factual observations.
17:36.98
Tyler
And
17:37.92
cactuschu
So they'll take a New York Times story and say let's try to take this New York Times story and correct for all of their racial and political biases and try to get the original thing and when you try to do that. You basically assign so much agency to those organizations. That there's no way not to be conspiratorial right? You're trying to. You're basically putting that in as an axiom. So ah I guess the best way to kind of extend this line of questioning is basically. What is an effective way? What? Ah if you were to construct an effective way to try to challenge power or to or to ah take power away from concentrated attractors of power. How would you do that? How would you start off with that?
18:26.90
Tyler
I Don't think I have any kind of effective strategy myself. But I would start from a much broader question. I would just say if you look back at the sort of history of progress broadly construed like what percentage of it has come from contributions from people who more or less would agree with me. And I'm not sure what that number is but I'm not convinced that it's staggeringly large and once you see that in the historical record. The progress has come from all sorts of places and points of views and approaches. You're just way less concerned with developing. Like some kind of strategy to fix things or make things better and to just do it. The micro level like things you know you can do or be effective at or things you can build or things that are somehow concordant with your own incentives and happiness. You know, do that and hope for the best and I don't think I have better strategies. And the people whose strategies I might be criticizing.
19:28.19
cactuschu
That's quite interesting and so when people are doing those things and they realize at the ground level that what they could best do to improve uncertain areas is. Actually to Target Target people. Um or to target institutions and to try to either change them or remove them and replace them. Ah, how would you respond to that right?
19:57.74
Tyler
I'm not sure exactly what it is. You're asking me but I'm just not mainly in the macro strategy mode period. But maybe rephrase the question.
19:58.85
cactuschu
So so.
20:08.13
cactuschu
Right? So I basically heard you advocating for a kind of ah, kind of localism right for people to look at whatever problems they are in reach of themselves and choose the best option right.
20:21.22
Tyler
I would say I'm more describing it than advocating it. I guess I do advocate it. But the people who think they're doing something other than that often they're just fooling themselves and they're actually pursuing localism under some kind of other garb. That's often you know some fair amount of delusion. Might be a useful delusion but still my advocacy of localism is in part just seeing it as inevitable. Maybe not if you're president of the United States well you could have a million twitter followers and ultimately you're just.
20:48.57
cactuschu
Ah, sorry, go What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean by the people who are deluding themselves?
20:58.80
Tyler
Probably not very powerful or influential right? So people get carried away or drunk with some sense of their own power and influence and usually they're just wrong. The world is really hard to sway. Maybe ten fifteen years ago I wrote a blog post. Like who are the public intellectuals that actually have had influence. It wasn't a 0 number but it was surprisingly hard to come up with many people at all and this is like whether you mean good or bad influence. So I think people should set modest expectations and focus on self-improvement. And realize a lot of the actual gains likely to come ah like might come from the other side or from other sides or from different places. Altogether.
21:43.42
cactuschu
I Think that there's a kind of paradox there or is this a paradox at all. So let's get into the specifics when there is a kind of broad scale disagreement. I think it's more useful to work it out as an example of.
22:00.37
Tyler
That.
22:02.24
cactuschu
Specifics. So ah good I think possibly the most balanced towards removing basically bad people from power the most biased example would be public health and by bias I mean the most favorable example for the position I'm advocating and with public health of course. Had many decisions that were not just against their state admission but the precise opposite of their state admission. Good example of this is at the very beginning of the covid pandemic they banned covid tests and they banned all covid tests aside from a single lab in Atlanta which actually had covid tests which failed regularly and.
22:33.50
Tyler
Um, hurt. Yeah.
22:41.60
cactuschu
Ah, of course you can say well we should just try to innovate. We should try to make better covid tests. But of course this is impossible and I don't want to reduce your position there. Of course there are other ways to try to circumvent that but I think that in the aggregate there is no. There is no kind of. More efficient path to changing the problem than just saying honestly we cannot have this as an institution, especially an institution that does not help hold people accountable for at the very least like 2 or 3 years right.
23:14.17
Tyler
I wouldn't focus on the leaders so much. I mean there are reflections of generations of training and the people behind them are often at least as bad. So I think often what actually changes people's minds is events.
23:23.40
cactuschu
I agree.
23:31.78
Tyler
And we did have obviously with testing and covid and now monkeypox some pretty major events. So I think looking forward to testing we will do somewhat better but that's just because of events changing people's minds. It wasn't that someone had some long range plan. Well for 2 generations I've been on a train. The next set of public health advocates. So the Dr Foushee of the future will maximize expected value like I'm all for trying to do that. In fact but the reality is I think what will have ended up mattering is just events.
24:05.37
cactuschu
I Think that it's true that events will change public opinion. But actually I think that events will be relatively uninfluential and ah we actually have quite good data points now with Monkeypox. There's quite a similarity.
24:07.96
Tyler
Um.
24:23.17
cactuschu
If not worse reaction to it I think ah of this quite ideological campaign and actually learned from ah from someone on this podcast. Ah Shvi Moushowwiz and I know you. I know you've given hints of grant as well.
24:38.45
Tyler
Um, he's great. Yeah.
24:40.65
cactuschu
Ah, that they're actually repeating exactly the same thing with polio testing in New York they're banning third -party polio tests and ah and ah, it's just there's no sign that there's any learning whatsoever and of course maybe we just need more events. But
24:52.31
Tyler
Oh I think there's a lot of fines so on monkeypox testing we're at least starting to get that fixed way quicker than with covid testing with polio. We'll see with monkeypox we're at least trying a version of first doses first and that happened pretty quickly. Ah, the next booster for you, you know the new strains of cover that will be ready after labor day even though it hasn't gone through all of what would have been the previous required tests so like it may not be close to where you want to be. But because of events I think we've made a lot of progress but I'd love to see us make a lot more but I don't think we're just not getting anywhere with this.
25:38.26
cactuschu
That's an interesting challenge to this and the first instinct that I have and I'm not sure if I'm fooling myself here either is that this seems like. Ah, kind of it seems kind of fooled by randomness to me right? There are situations where these changes seem rather insignificant compared to the long arc. Of basically more centralization and and more basically detachment from reality in terms of public health and I mean you can look at some specific you can look at some specific data points but I can look at other specific data points like the polio testing like um, quite quite frankly, the possibility or.
26:18.93
Tyler
Um, I don't know what the long arc is.
26:30.89
cactuschu
Or the reality even of many at the very least yeah universities and the possibility that they're going to do destructive lockdowns again and of course these are more these are much more unpopular with the public. These are certainly much less likely as a kind of geographical whole as it was before. But. I Don't know what kind of evidence you would say would be enough to convince you that this is not a trajectory that is sustainable versus a trajectory that is right.
27:04.93
Tyler
Well I never know what sustainable if anything is but if I take the elites I know in public health and I can't name names. Ah but these are not libertarians. You know, pre-covered kind of zero out of 10 or one out of 10 might have said the Cdc. Was hopeless and now 8 or 9 out of 10 would say that and want to fix it now. Maybe they won't do a good job fixing it. But at the margins you see people in the system like truly believing different things and acting differently and yes, it's only a quarter or a fifth of the change I would want or maybe what you would want. I just see a significant response though in a better direction.
27:46.30
cactuschu
And that response is from people who are within those institutions or if you are outside Huh Interesting I would not have made the same observation.
27:49.64
Tyler
Absolutely hundred percent again. Insufficient. Maybe a fifth of what I would want and maybe not a sufficiently systemic understanding of what went wrong like why did the Cdc screw up. Well, you can cite particular things. But maybe the actual forces were very systematic. Ah and people won't see that but they'll still take some actions so there's ah, an announced plan in the Biden administration to take some of those powers away from the Cdc. Yeah, will the new group be any better? Far from obvious to me I don't know enough to say but the mere fact that they've done that shows. There's some change of understanding on the inside due mainly to events, not the Biden people all becoming libertarians.
28:41.42
cactuschu
Um, and okay, let me just take it.
28:42.57
Tyler
Or the new darpa-like procedures for part of the and Nih again that could fail but it didn't happen because of outside pressure. It's that enough people on the inside saw like hey the and Nih isn't working well enough. It's too slow in some ways so we want to make part of it more like Darpa. Again I don't know if they'll succeed I'm certainly following it too early to say but you I see a lot of somewhat positive signs.
29:11.98
cactuschu
All right, it's interesting. Ah yeah I have not seen those signs. I have many people within the kind of medical or ah or epidemiological schools. Ah and and they skew young.
29:14.53
Tyler
Um, in.
29:26.81
cactuschu
So maybe this is a sampling Bias. It almost certainly is but I have not. I have not seen similar signs ah something that ah to turn to a positive note I remember he was saying on a podcast and I actually looked at the transcript and to find the specific quote. There's no longer heterodox or orthodox anymore and ideas come from the internet whether everyone likes that or not and I think that this is an interesting sentiment and I don't think you really covered it in enough on that Podcast. So what do you mean by this? In ah in as many words as you want.
30:03.16
Tyler
It just seems obvious to me new ideas come from the internet including bad ones to be clear, um, not mostly from Academia though there's a lot of back and forth or the influential academics are influential because of their internet role and not always their academic role.
30:06.81
cactuschu
She.
30:20.99
Tyler
And there's a lot of academic research that is supposed to be highly influential . I'm not sure it is and the internet just matters more and more. It's Cheap. It's quick. It's readily available. Kind of everyone's on it. There's back and forth policymakers. Read it. Journalists read it and so on and so on just the obvious points I could talk through. I Just think if you add them up you arrive at a conclusion such as mine. I don't even view it as controversial and I guess I said it on the internet didn't I.
30:51.82
cactuschu
Yes, you definitely did. So if we're I think that this is definitely true for a kind of rising culture right for Silicon Valley for us certainly for. For new businesses that are coming out. Not necessarily just in that area and I am optimistic about it I should say but actually let's focus on that for a bit I think that it's very important to be optimistic about these areas. So what? what? I'm seeing a lot of things I think. Correctly, allocated distrust right? There's a lot of conversation about distrust of institutions. I think many institutions should be distrusted and I think that the distribution of people. Basically so like going ah beating up on public health and being promarket and being. Roughly pro voting I think that's good. I think that I'm seeing a kind of wave in gen z especially in people who are in the natural sciences or in computer science that are very much correctly, calibrated in this way and I think that's a. That's something of great optimism to have.
32:05.19
Tyler
Yes I agree with that very much so I'm much less pessimistic than most of the other what you might call public intellectuals I know.
32:15.42
cactuschu
Yeah, so what have you seen as a trend among Generations E Do you have? ah do you have similar observations about this.
32:26.11
Tyler
I'm never sure classifying by generations is useful. It seems to me more of a continuum. Ah, but that said rebelling against woke seems to be the new youthful form of rebellion at a lot of margins.
32:37.54
cactuschu
See.
32:39.53
Tyler
We may even go too far with that. But you know I'm well known for arguing at least outside of the academy volkism has Peaked. There's some voter rebellion against it and it will remain in the mix. It's still of course highly significant. But we're just going to see more weirdness, more diversity, more internet ideas. Smartest young people are eclectic and let's just deal with that. It's not going to be a perfect intellectual world. But it's pretty exciting to me.
33:05.51
cactuschu
Right? What do you think of us? What do you think of changing social norms? Do you do? What do you think there? There is a change of if if at all.
33:16.31
Tyler
I Think amongst women maybe not as a whole, but there's a a kind of mini rebellion against feminism people not liking the term or or fearing that Feminism has become another way to restrict their choices.
33:28.15
cactuschu
Ah, only.
33:34.29
Tyler
And they want to break free of those categories not to be anti-feminist or like give back rights and privileges they have won but just in a sort of Egalian way to transcend some of the old distinctions and move to something better and that seems good and healthy to me.
33:49.89
cactuschu
I Think that maybe this is because I started off on the wrong foot. But when I look at this analysis. It's much less political and much more kind of so in chest, there's this distinction between tactic and strategy right? There's like the grand ideas and then there's kind of the little tricks along the way. And to me the little tricks along the way come and come in the form of Conversational dynamics right? I think I see a very clear divergence and the millennials are on one side of this divergence and maybe or on half of genes is on one side of this divergence. Ah, of course this is approximate as you said it's hard to make very specific. Ah.
34:19.80
Tyler
Yeah.
34:29.10
cactuschu
Very specific partitions across generations. But what I see is that what I associate with millennials is this kind of self-hesitancy this ah was it imposter syndrome this basically attitude of deference and. What I see with gen z is that there's a divergence from this. There are people who are certainly hyper deferential and then there are people who are like no, we're not, we're not going to do this anymore. We're going to kind of like and we're going to have ideas and we're going to fight each other with ideas and we're going to be very open about that in the king of Chicago sal way.
34:59.31
Tyler
Um, in.
35:04.94
cactuschu
And to me this is something to be incredibly optimistic about.
35:08.42
Tyler
Um, I agree not to excuse myself.
35:10.83
cactuschu
Take your time. Don't worry.
35:18.13
Tyler
I would like to see more data on millennials. I mean the descriptions you offer. They do ring true to me. But we also have to ask what are the achievements of millennials and if you think of human history. We have how many thousands of years across how many different cultures where say gay people. Or mostly not accepted ancient Greece and different exceptions I know about that stuff but essentially as a gross generalization. It's true for all of human history and now we're in a world where at least a whole bunch of countries are populous wealthy countries and influential countries. People are more or less accepted and can marry and have full civil rights. It seems like maybe permanent is too strong a word but enduring and that's such a major achievement and we've so quickly internalized it and maybe millennials get a lot of the credit for that. So. You know one has to look at the good and the bad and we've just come off of this major unprecedented historic achievement. So maybe we should be pretty happy about the millennials for all their whining or whatever right? I don't know if it's the biggest but it's a major achievement.
36:25.57
cactuschu
Is that their biggest achievement that just shows how old is cat cattle in carco.
36:33.74
Tyler
Sure I mean that too that's great as well. I don't know if he counts as a millennial coming from Hungary but.
36:35.80
cactuschu
I Actually don't know I don't know if he's a millennial or not.
36:44.13
cactuschu
Born January Nineteen Fifty five so no definitely not ah right? Yeah I think that I mean if that's there if that is what you see as their biggest accomplishment.
36:45.74
Tyler
Yeah, and again the place of birth matters too.
36:56.30
Tyler
Um, I don't think it's that big. It's a very big accomplishment.
36:59.67
cactuschu
Then I don't think we actually disagree all that much. I see that as not a significant accomplishment at all like what is more important right? that or like inventing semiconductors to to take a relatively recent example or or inventing Mrna vaccines right? I see the invention of MMr and Mrna vaccines as wildly more important than that.
37:16.34
Tyler
The opportunities for gay individuals to further invent things and not have outcomes like Alan Turing's shows those are two sides of the same coin It's not either or so we've mobilized a lot more talent and creativity by giving gay individuals. Like near complete civil rights.
37:35.30
cactuschu
Oh this is actually very interesting. This is actually a very interesting line. Okay of this so would you say that would you say that these basically express these changes in like freedom.
37:38.17
Tyler
And
37:53.23
cactuschu
Expression of what you can say without being socially stigmatized or what you can symbolically do with these marriages or partnerships right? Ah, or I mean we they're also repealing of sodomy laws and those those I think are a bit further back. But. In general. Do you see these? basically ah these freedoms that are not directly related to innovation as also being correlated with freedoms of innovation.
38:22.80
Tyler
On average. Yes, so the fact that more women can work in labs The fact that gay individuals have easier and happier lives that does boost labor supply and also innovation.
38:37.94
cactuschu
Okay, so I think that we are just.
38:39.75
Tyler
Ah, you don't have to think it's the number one most important factor but it's it's clearly a positive so it's not like gay rights or inventing XY and z you know the millennials helped us take some steps that will get us more of both.
38:56.30
cactuschu
Okay, that's quite interesting to me because to me a lot of these. Ah basically I'm trying to think of a politically neutral way to describe this that doesn't kind of. You know, ah that doesn't beg the question. But yeah I don't think there's a better way for me to say this I think a lot of these social trends right? and I do think that there are trends that are part of my model that are basically just like wastes of talent, right? I think that a lot of people are going in. Going into social Activism is I mean I Also think that in many ways that they're doing damage but also that it's just a drain. It's a drain from people who could be doing much more interesting things with their lives and I see that very much in Generation c.
39:42.60
Tyler
Well, again, it depends on the cause there's plenty of causes I disagree with and then the activism is worse than wasteful but look at say Andrew Sullivan pushing to legalize gay marriage. It's not like Andrew would have been in the lab. You know, inventing the flying car. Ah he did an enormous amount of good for many millions and that seems to be quite enduring and it just seems to me like a major achievement of the modern world. I don't really see the downside of it really at all.
40:16.64
cactuschu
Well wouldn't be on the extremes. It would be marginal right? So you can imagine a hypothetical person who's deciding between going into basically like woke activism and going into something actually productive. And I know it's pretty difficult to imagine such a person but I think on the margins they exist. I actually know some people like this.
40:34.49
Tyler
I disagree with a lot of woke Activism. I'm just saying this one part of woke Activism has been great and highly significant and it goes into the ledger when we evaluate millennials but a lot of woke Activism is both a waste of resources and pushing for bad ends.
40:53.91
cactuschu
Okay, so oh okay I think I've picked up on the disagreement so to me the primary change in ah, especially like the post Obama years right? I think the sodomy laws is getting rid of as sodomy laws is fine, but. Much of the change post Obama especially has been this pivot into symbolism which I think is not very correlated with basically like a gay scientist being able to continue doing science like a normal person and much more correlated with. Basically people become very obsessed with symbolism in the words that they're using and this kind of signaling apparatus right? So I think it's just an empirical disagreement. Um.
41:37.57
Tyler
Well sure but I would make 2 points 1 is a lot of the changes you know started as symbolic efforts and paid off in substantive ways. The kind of more marginal more recent like what are probably to both of us worse efforts. I still do think it's too early to judge like go back and look at the history of seventeenth century england which kind of intellectually is quite a deranged error people believing all kinds of weird and wacky things extreme cults movements intellectual perversions. Ah you know King being executed.
41:56.33
cactuschu
Really.
42:13.96
Tyler
Political chaos a lot of it worked out really well now maybe it's an accident that it did. But if you're sitting around in like sixteen thirty and trying to see where it's all going to end and like who's the good work, who's the bad woke and what do you think of Cromwell or the glorious revolution. Like you're really far epistemically from having a handle on it so it could just be the current world is quite a bit like that.
42:40.65
cactuschu
That to me makes it pretty difficult to be against anything right? Like how do we know that Putin's wrong right like and to be clear I think Putin is wrong I just don't know how you can apply this.
42:51.60
Tyler
Um, well I guess.
42:54.67
Tyler
Here.
42:59.57
cactuschu
Standard without basically like can or like basically like not being against anything.
43:05.96
Tyler
But take a seventeenth century group like the millenarians or the levelers or the fifth monarchy men. Ah they were wacky in different ways. Maybe we're still not sure how well they all worked out. It seems to me the levelers worked out very well. The others I'm not so sure about. Ah, at the same time you can say well Napoleon you know, invading Russia and butchering so many people that was bad but just a bunch of highly symbolic ideas that seem wacky. I think we should be very uncertain as to how it's going to work out. Doesn't mean we have to be uncertain about everything but the upfront cost is pretty low and that there's not much in the way of rights violations going on like what do you think of the fifth monarchy men.
43:50.31
cactuschu
I mean I think that we have to be able to make predictions of the future without saying those predictions are 100% correct right? I agree with you with this kind of historical premise.
43:51.31
Tyler
Um, yeah, yeah.
44:09.51
cactuschu
That there are wild ideas that become much more accepted. But I think I just disagree with you in terms of the distribution right? and in terms of how much that distribution or in terms of what that distribution is like in the present day and I think that especially with wokeness. They're very clear ways. In which you can point out that it's actually quite actively destructive in ways that are less contingent upon sort of cultural beliefs as I think I mean I'm not a seventeenth century historian but that I think was not the case back then.
44:35.91
Tyler
There.
44:44.18
Tyler
Sure but he even takes woakism. Maybe the main effect will be global and it will be a really good thing on that right? don't you think most of the world should be more woke? Of course it should go to India, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia. My goodness , look at these places, they need way more wokeness.
44:46.18
cactuschu
Right? You have.
44:53.71
cactuschu
No.
45:03.85
Tyler
I'd rather they get it in kind of my classical liberal form than in what's currently on the table. But if the only variable is more or less. So what's out there now is a very good chance that more is better for the world.
45:16.44
cactuschu
Okay, so I mean let's run this thought experiment right? I think that this is very much.
45:20.70
Tyler
Just think of all the women raped in India who have like 0 recourse major made the problem there or women who can't work because social norms are so screwed up. India is one point three eight billion people now I forget the number but it's very high. It's more populous than China.
45:41.86
cactuschu
I Think that this is looking at wokeness in its historical continuity that it likes to present itself as which is which is in my opinion false.
45:59.31
Tyler
Well I agree it's very bad for American academic life. It's very bad for American media for the world as a whole I would say uncertain but I'm probably leaning positive that all said I would way prefer to disaggregate it and pull out the good from the bad and that's.
46:01.42
cactuschu
Right? so.
46:17.39
Tyler
Where I try to put my efforts.
46:20.77
cactuschu
Right? And so I think they just disagree with me. Ah, if or or just let me know if you disagree with this but I think the fairest way to do this.
46:26.50
Tyler
Um, yeah.
46:37.70
cactuschu
Hypothetical test. Ah testable is let's say we took the activists we took the leaders of black lives matter and we put them in charge of ah and we put them in charge of some major political center in India right? some department of something in India. Maybe we give them like ibram Kendi's plan and we say they have like ah they have like a borough of anti-racism and so on and this boro is quite powerful. Do you think that this would be with not just ah, people who are in India but with the specific people in. United States who represent wokism either in public or in activist organizations and we took them and we put them in India and we said okay, you guys have this power now do as you will would that result in a better India.
47:28.26
Tyler
Ah, possibly could they do anything sustainable I don't know but most of these individuals would want to reform the caste system now black lives matter in particular is often not that woke on issues of gender in practice. So rhetorically. Ah, there's somewhat of a different front. So if gender is India's main problem I'm not sure that's exactly you know the movement you would want to send there. But if you took like american feminists as as you would find at Brown University and had them. Ah you know voice opinions. On women's status in India and the caste system I don't know if they could get anything sustainable. But yes I think that's a positive.
48:15.49
cactuschu
I think to me this is very much taking organizations as they're basically claimed objective and to me this is a. Fundamental mistake I know we're both familiar with Robin Hanson you probably much more familiar than I am actually right, but he has this? yeah but he has this model of basically status signaling right? and I think that's about right? and so many people go to healthcare.
48:41.20
Tyler
20 years of lunch among other things.
48:53.51
cactuschu
And get health care because they want to feel like they're taken care of, not necessarily because it's the best treatment for the most affordable wolf price. Many people participate in politics because they want to signal that they're part of an in-group and Activism is clearly an extension of this and to me if you just. Extrapolate or if you just work backwards from the explicit actions of many of these activist groups I think Race is where it's most obvious but in many cases in gender as Well. They are not fundamentally oriented towards.
49:22.40
Tyler
Um, this.
49:30.47
cactuschu
Some kind of uplift. They're fundamentally oriented based on a sort of envy. So.
49:34.85
Tyler
A lot of it's control right? A lot of it is striking fear into the hearts of their opponents using a culture of redistributing private benefits to themselves. All that's true. I think it's true for just about every kind of group and there's the good and the bad. But again, if you had more of that in India but say better treatment for muslims under Modi weaker caste system more caste intermarriage far greater legal recourse for women. It still seems evident to me. There's a very good chance that it would be a big net. Plus. Well I would grant all the criticisms you might make of the particular groups rent seeking privilege envy intolerance cancel culture all the way down the list I'm in a university I see all that believe me I suffer under it I'm not for it.
50:29.60
cactuschu
I guess the best way to proceed with this is to outline my case of what would happen in India which is that these groups would claim to fight for marginalized people. They would attack. Many legacy institutions which they claim are detrimental to those people and they will replace it with nothing and so you will have for example attacks on marriage. I mean this is not hypothetical, right? This is of course being done in the United States ah has been done continues to be done ah valorization of prostitution and they will continue basically looking at these taking many of these symbols which are actively harmful to which I believe are actively harmful ah to the women of America and ultimately to the women of the. Ah, or sorry to the women of India if it's imposed there and you'll see many similarities and I think the most direct parallel that you'll get is you'll see a trajectory that's quite similar with that of african americans who of course. Ah. There are economic circumstances and you can say there's more things than economic but their economic circumstances have in fact deteriorated as this is ramped up and to me this is because there is a fundamental misalignment problem here there is an anti-optimization problem. Well you think that.
51:56.15
cactuschu
They're optimizing for the treatment of these people and they're not optimizing for these people and for the treatment of those people at all. They're optimizing for quite the opposite . they're optimizing for the opportunity to fear Monger which is most often directly correlated to the mistreatment of those people.
52:10.15
Tyler
But if your point is that a very external foreign version of wokism might just screw up India just as colonialism. Did I mean I would readily grant that but I think the hope is.
52:20.55
cactuschu
I don't think it's a foreign version. It's literally what has been done in the past twenty years
52:26.78
Tyler
There's an indian version of wolkism for women's rights which is quite active in indian now and I think a pretty significant net positive and it's indigenous to India and speaking of indigenous you know, tribal groups and indigenous groups in India also have much better rights now than they used to. And that's for the better and it's come in part from wokist like movements but like I agree, there's all this power seeking involved in these movements too. I'm not sure they're worse than other movements on average, maybe sometimes worse. Maybe sometimes even better.
52:52.84
cactuschu
Um, I mean I'm much less familiar with India.
53:04.45
Tyler
Like how good are all these libertarian movements I don't know there's a lot of self-interested Behavior all over the place.
53:19.36
cactuschu
I mean I'm going to try to acknowledge this quite difficult for me that there's this. There's this ah partition between like ah.
53:35.59
cactuschu
Okay, I'm going to try to reconstruct your position and I'm not sure if I'm actually able to do it successfully. But. I Don't know there's There's no way to do this that doesn't seem like a straw man and doesn't seem like it contradicts with some of the things that you said but let's do it like this. So your description of Wokeism. Is essentially ah a movement that is primarily driven by concern for equality and marginalized groups that takes some virtuous aspects from the civil rights movement and ah has also been affected by basically these will to power things. These negative Tactics would be a fair would be a fair representation.
54:34.29
Tyler
Ah, close enough for a podcast. Obviously I'd want to refine it a bit but we can run with that.
54:39.51
cactuschu
Okay I think that. I Mean we can approach this in a bunch of ways. But I think this boils down to my institutional analysis at the very start. Actually let's start with this question. This question might be good. How important. Do you see intent ? How important do you see intent as in judging the effectiveness of a group?
55:21.94
Tyler
I View a lot of intent as ambiguous or multifaceted and most people are mostly selfish all the time. So maybe that's suggesting I don't always see intent is so important.
55:34.45
cactuschu
Okay, I completely agree with you and that's part of that's an axiom that goes into my institutional analysis which is essentially that many organizations function in ways that are explicitly contradictory or almost precisely the opposite.
55:53.50
Tyler
Sure.
55:54.13
cactuschu
Of what they claim to do and that in many cases you have organizations that claim to do something and in fact, accomplish practically the opposite and that in those cases, the intent of those organizations should be completely discarded.
56:09.88
Tyler
Maybe completely is too strong a word but look in India there's plenty of groups I spoke to some people who were involved with them to give women who are raped the chance to bring actual suits against their violators in a way that doesn't take 20 years or involve extreme humiliation. Make them unacceptable on the marriage market and so on and I don't doubt the motives of those people are mixed. There's a lot of hypocrisy and Sony and reasoning might apply. It just seems to me those are largely highly beneficial movements and I'm rooting for them to succeed and I view that as a pretty big and essential part of. The emancipatory perspective of libertarianism and classical liberalism and I don't quite get why? what? you might call the north american right? isn't just fully on board with that as part of a belief in human liberty.
56:51.24
cactuschu
Yeah, is it?
57:01.90
cactuschu
I Don't think they aren't like I think that it's fine like this is just like this is just like common long right? Like this is this is not particularly I wouldn't dissociate that that kind of and that kind of legal change At. And with wokeness. So I assume so.
57:21.12
Tyler
Well, that's what woke is in India Not only that but that but yeah, those are the main changes being made because of woke and semi woke ideas and I would be happy if like the libertarians could do all the carrying themselves. But for whatever reasons they failed. And we've needed the woke to push that stuff through not that it's been pushed through by any means but it's in the works.
57:48.37
cactuschu
So do these organizations in India do they call themselves woke. Do they kind of align with the global ngo apparatus that is affiliated with woke like what is the reason why you group those 2 together.
58:06.61
Tyler
Ah, they're very influenced by woke and by Western Feminism Obviously it's a big place with a lot of diverse groups but they're definitely strongly influenced by Wokeism and feminism.
58:20.86
cactuschu
That's quite interesting.
58:23.69
Tyler
And a lot of it is sort of carried by you know Left Indian left is a tricky phrase for American ears. Ah, but more of it's being carried by the Indian left than by the Indian right by a long mile.
58:38.45
cactuschu
That's understandable. I don't think I don't have a problem with just leftism broadly defined as I do. Yeah, I think this is just a difference of categorizations in the end. Ah, although maybe not right because this is about the influence of the american. Woke movement worldwide. so I guess the assumption here is that given a kind of classical liberal or or not even that right? So let's say the cultural atmosphere of the United States has frozen. As absurd as this hypothetical is let's say the cultural atmosphere of the United States had f frozenze in let's say like the 80 s ah for 40 years and and technology expanded would would people's. Would american groups still be supporting the right of rape victims to Sue in India like I think they would right.
59:37.47
Tyler
Well, like partly, it's a question of priorities like what do you see as the cutting edges in the struggle for liberty around the globe and it seems to me to be North American right? has fixated on a bunch of things that are not very productive in its most extreme form people like oh. You know there this conspiracy against Iver Machine would be like 1 of the stupidest examples and then the stuff that really matters if you ask them? They're not going to be like all you know, let them rape the women but at the end of the day. It's very far from the forefront of their consciousness and I think that's a big mistake.
01:00:25.63
cactuschu
I agree with the iver mechtin point that that's quite a strong one. It's hard to say that people's time would be better spent trying to try to give to everyone I've met. Ah but this is a question of taking it in aggregate right? so. To me, the American right? Wing. Ah I had a threat on Twitter that was ah successful at least for me for my following size which was basically so talking about a kind of big tent populism there. There is one commandment the the 1 commandment of populism. Is to delegitimize the ruling class and to me that is what the current kind of right wing populist movement is centered around and to me that kind of broad mission if done if done strategically and of course that's a very big if.
01:01:09.49
Tyler
Sure.
01:01:21.35
cactuschu
Is not a bad one and in fact is quite an important one and would lead to the positive changes that I think both of us would agree on in terms of regulation reduction of regulation in terms of ah, certainly ah, reform of public health and. If not the destruction of that concept entirely. Ah reform of the media and I think that that's quite important. Ah these are the same problems as salient in India. I mean I'm once again deferential to you on this point but from what I hear.
01:01:58.80
Tyler
Um, sure and censored increasingly.
01:01:58.17
cactuschu
Indian media is fairly corrupt At. Yes, and I'd end their markets could certainly be much more free and that these would perhaps be like I don't know what? What do you think that kind of weight or weight of those issues are?
01:02:22.35
Tyler
Well India is an interesting case I know I brought it up but India is kind of ruled by right wing populists. So the previous elites were delegitimize and we got the right wing populists in power. That's the danger.
01:02:23.59
cactuschu
Ah, so you think the balance is going ahead.
01:02:40.66
Tyler
And things are all the more worse and if you're going to look at you know Health Policy India had much more disastrous lockdowns than we did. So I'm not sure that a scenario where you delegitimmatize the non- right-ing ruling elites and just replace them with rightwing populists. Is that a good thing? I suspect that it's a bad thing. What I really want is for some of the elites to come under criticism and you kind of shuffle into some better elites without the right wing populists taking over.
01:03:13.36
cactuschu
So in this case the right wing. So the right wing parties in India were pro lockdown.
01:03:19.58
Tyler
Oh extremely. They had vicious lockdowns and furthermore India because it's so crowded. You just lock people up in their homes. But there's hardly any space and you're probably increasing transmission if you lock people into their main summer homes in the US like the upper middle class is safer. You might think it's not worth it. But there is a way to lock people down and make them safer for a while. India you can't even do that so it was a terrible policy and India may have lost 5000000 lives in the pandemic which is incredible.
01:03:45.89
cactuschu
And
01:03:54.57
cactuschu
And so we'll do the rationale for that.
01:04:00.62
Tyler
You know you should ask Shrudy who is more of an expert on this than I am but I think there's a tendency of poorer countries to copy higher status countries sometimes in good ways but very often in bad ways. So like ah the high status countries did lockdowns. Lockdowns are the thing to do and India did them.
01:04:23.67
cactuschu
And you would consider this a more populist manifestation.
01:04:31.66
Tyler
I'm not always sure what that word means but it was done by a right wing populist government which was and remains highly popular even after 5000000 people died and the economy shrunk by about 20%. I don't understand the political economy of all that. But I see that they did it.
01:04:52.87
cactuschu
Yeah I think this line is a bit limited by my lack of understanding of India but to me.
01:04:59.80
Tyler
But I'm just saying I'm not itching for the right wing populists to get their way. I think they're going to replicate the mistakes of the elites. They've been criticizing in a whole bunch of ways that won't surprise me but I think say the Idw people aren't quite ready for.
01:05:18.30
cactuschu
Ah, gone What what? What? What are those ways?
01:05:19.26
Tyler
Well, a lot of the mistakes. The elites make it because they're constrained and they don't know what to do? They don't have that many levers they feel they have to do something. They do a lot of things that are stupid and just slotting in a group of people who call themselves right? wing populists. Doesn't change that basic calculus.
01:05:43.60
cactuschu
Ah, what? what mistakes in particular.
01:05:46.80
Tyler
Well, in this case, it would be lockdowns like a lot of people are dying. You feel you have to do something? Um, but just in general bad government policies, demonetization in India was the right wing populists, the poorer people who were more reliant on cash and it. Taking cash away from a lot of them caused a recession or depression from any of those people. That quote unquote populist is a move of the uncaring elites. I mean you can debate that I'm just saying that or take the Trump and Biden administrations. Forget about the rhetoric on actual policy there alike in a great number of ways. Not student loan forgiveness but they each spent $2000000000000 they each screwed up a lot of covid policy. They each withdrew or wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan and on and on and on they're not that different in every way. Yeah.
01:06:40.50
cactuschu
Right? Maybe I should clarify that I'm a physician a bit. I don't think that right wing elites will be extraordinarily better. But I think they will certainly be better in noticeable but not revolutionary ways. I think that I mean Trump is kind of, yeah I've had many, many kinds of internal debates, especially the more heated ones that are actually in private about Trump . It is just so counterproductive like you could write a script for a republican party.
01:07:17.42
Tyler
And
01:07:18.62
cactuschu
Or for a republican president that just activates all of the enemy groups and Trump would be pretty close to that script. It's just so ineffective. So just like painfully self-destructive. Ah.
01:07:28.58
Tyler
But there's a long history of other right wing elites coming to power not the current sort of semi populist right? But the Richard Nixon right, the George Bush right and so on and so on and so on I'm not sure how effective they've all been. It's just very hard to say to me. We're back at the fifth monarchy. I just don't know but the earlier right was supposedly obsessed with fiscal conservatism. Whether you agree with that or not, whether you think it's a priority or not It's quite clear. They gave us the exact opposite of that.
01:08:02.82
cactuschu
Right? I think that but.
01:08:05.12
Tyler
So I think it's important to detach from the right versus left struggle, the populist versus the elite, all that and just think very structurally and in terms of ideas and what you as an individual can build. I think a lot of the other stuff can drive people crazy.
01:08:22.57
cactuschu
I Do think it's quite important to think of things Structurally I mean it's like this right? There are some very big targets that are attractors and have all sorts of negative incentives. What you need to do is either remove them completely.
01:08:27.38
Tyler
And
01:08:40.87
cactuschu
Or remotely negative incentives which I think is even harder and to me this is just a kind of probability distribution right? If you have like a 10 % chance of solving that problem that's still quite better than. Then a 100 % chance of solving a problem. Let's say like 100 times smaller right? And when you get to the scale of the structures when you get to the scale of say of lockdowns when you get to the scale of banning tests and to me media is as bad. If not worse and there are many areas, these are the kinds of areas that I'm also personally favorable to like genomics or ah or psychometrics that are just so crucial to understanding human life and institutions and that are just absolutely.
01:09:36.82
cactuschu
Consistently lied about by legacy institutions. They're just large enough. They're just large enough gaps that if you have small percentages of even just removing them completely right? that this is a crucial task. This is a crucial task.
01:09:37.96
Tyler
Sure.
01:09:54.64
cactuschu
This is actually a process that I went through myself right? and so I had a process of okay what am I going to do with my life I can choose to. There are various paths I can choose to do. I choose to do math research. That's probably like the most fun thing but it's also pretty irrelevant until at least like I don't know 100 years into the future.
01:10:10.67
Tyler
Um, yeah.
01:10:12.52
cactuschu
Maybe it's still irrelevant right? Maybe I can solve some combinatorics problems that unlock a lot of technologies that'd be great. Okay, so there's that there is a startup. I considered this for quite a long time and specifically around machine learning which is the area of technology that I'm most familiar with. And I think that's actually quite an innovative and that's quite an innovative area that's quite a productive area that actually will achieve things and ultimately I decided against that because it's already incredibly talent saturated and what is not talents saturated and what has just.
01:10:40.78
Tyler
Pray.
01:10:48.67
cactuschu
Enormous payoff is really these either just wholesale destruction or even better thinking of a way to and incentive align. These basically anti-optimized institutions are institutions that not only do not do good things but actively select for doing bad things. For doing like actively destructive things things that are actively contrary to its actual mission and to me like the largest in the largest areas of just widespread failure. Whether it's medicine, whether it's housing, whether it's the government , whether it's the media.. It's kind of hard to say.
01:11:12.74
Tyler
Sure.
01:11:28.14
cactuschu
And this is kind of my critique of effective altruism as well. Like how are you going to get pandemic prevention when the Cdc is an organization that bans covid tests right? and I know that at the beginning of this. It's we we talked about maybe being more optimistic of just internal reform and I just.
01:11:37.37
Tyler
Um, frank.
01:11:45.84
cactuschu
Disagree with you on the ground level there. But when you have basically I think organizations that have these basically ah correction that have these equilibria that are incredibly stable and that. At least in my view they are just historically incredibly impressive in their ability to destroy reformers and to remove reformers and to prevent them from doing anything that actually improves the function of those organizations. It's hard to look at that and say like okay this is this is you know this is going to destroy you so you should just step away.
01:12:29.53
Tyler
You know people should work on those issues as you know I do myself. But I think I'm more optimistic than you about this pandemic response to Covid. It's the best pandemic response the world ever has seen as far as I can tell we had a vaccine in less than a year. And that ultimately was the most important thing: all the other stuff was in large degree a total screw up.
01:12:54.16
cactuschu
I mean I would say that this is kind of turning and turning the tables here that is in large part because of both libertarians and right wing populists.
01:13:03.28
Tyler
Um, think.
01:13:07.84
Tyler
Ah, in part. Yeah, but by no means all and keep in mind the foreign efforts. Ah you know we're not really pretarians.
01:13:13.10
cactuschu
Yeah I see the attacks on Legal immigration like this was in my this was in my this was in myversion ventures answer as well right I see the attacks on Legal immigration especially into to large degrees illegal immigration I see a lot of that demonization as just obviously negative.
01:13:29.45
Tyler
Um, sure.
01:13:32.62
cactuschu
Um, yeah, certainly the actual companies who are coming up with that but those vaccines. Ah they should not be demonized in I think many of the ways that that's susceptible to. But ultimately this is actually a part of that thread that I mentioned earlier. Ultimately, right.
01:13:47.90
Tyler
In.
01:13:51.36
cactuschu
Was there more obstruction to vaccines by by Trump by rightwing populists. What were there people actually calling like what is ah, are there. Any anti-vaxxers who are calling for vaccines to be banned versus. Really figures like Eric Toppel many legacy media organizations that actively tried to obstruct Trump getting a vaccine out faster and you can say this is just blind partisanship and republicans would have would have tried to ban vaccines if they were in the opposition and it was Hillary Clinton but I just don't think that's true.
01:14:10.98
Tyler
Score is terrible.
01:14:23.83
cactuschu
I Think that there's a kind of Libertarian strain that says you know people should be able to make those choices and that's a persistent strain in American politics and that there is a sort of. And there's a proceduralist strain that says no, you have to follow these institutions No matter how many times they failed us and even if they're actively stopping you from getting vaccines and so you know like which or which group of people were more obstructive in resulted in me, not getting a vaccine as fast as I could have. I would say the legacy institutions.
01:14:55.58
Tyler
Yes, and no keep in mind the actual work is done by multinational companies who are like establishment to the nth degree operation warp speed is designed in essence by the ideas of Michael Kramer and at times by Kramer the person himself. He was then a Harvard professor who is kind of an ultimate centrist Technocrat Nobel laureate, a very smart guy. So the idea that the establishment is just like Eric Topel you know holding the vaccine away from you for another five weeks which is. Like true. Ah the establishment did a lot more than that that was super positive and was essential.
01:15:38.67
cactuschu
I should say I agree with you that I shouldn't just overly characterize. There are certainly establishment people, especially people not necessarily in issue. Well some institutions but to a large degree. There are people who are always exceptions to the rule and I and I don't disagree with you there at all. But
01:15:46.70
Tyler
And
01:15:58.41
cactuschu
There is just a very simple binary in many of these cases right? Do you give the Cdc the authority to ban code ban covered tests and to ban vaccines or not right do and or give the Fda the ability to ban vaccines or not right. These are. Just decisions and you can say and you can look at just the fact level analysis here right? which is which group is more likely to actually be is actually likely to strip those organizations of their enforcement ability. Now. You can say maybe like Trump they don't they just they just fail.
01:16:19.80
Tyler
Um, and.
01:16:35.60
cactuschu
But a lot of organizations fail right? A lot of efforts fail and I think that what is the percent chance of doing that right? What is the percent chance that we get Ron Desantis in and he strips? Ah the Cdc of their ability to ban covid tests and the Fda of their ability to ban vaccines
01:16:39.24
Tyler
Then.
01:16:53.50
cactuschu
And that we actually have just a more a more free market system I think that probability is not 100
01:16:56.24
Tyler
But keep in mind even on the Fda the Fda. Yeah did its best job ever on a major issue much better than they were saying with hiv aids there was Fda created delays that were significant. But they still manage the whole thing within a year which no one thought possible and I don't think you can take away the role of the fda period. What the Fda is doing in part is insulating the companies from liability so you need an Fda process because the default is the american court system. Which is far worse than the Fda itself. So in that sense. You know the actual gain we might get is the next time the Fda is three months faster which I would love. It's a lot of lies right? But the FDA did it in less than a year. What people thought would take them four or five years and that's pretty impressive and Cdc and testing I just think we need to take testing out of their hands and even some kind of law passed like you can measure your own body I'm not sure exactly how to word it but just out of pure libertarian grounds I would favor that. So the government previously was skeptical of pregnancy tests and then hiv aids tests like this have come up for a long while you do think some kind of basic kind of very crude ro barty and self ownership. The Axiom approach is correct here. You know people can stick out their tongue and put their finger on it. Whatever.
01:18:12.13
cactuschu
That's completely great.
01:18:17.64
cactuschu
Yes.
01:18:31.00
Tyler
They can do it.
01:18:33.41
cactuschu
Right? And wait, I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing here at this point.
01:18:40.18
Tyler
No I'm testing I'm agreeing but ah vaccines were by far the important thing like if we had had perfect Cdc testing policies. Whatever you think those are, I don't know how much it would have mattered. Actually it certainly would have been better.
01:18:57.59
Tyler
Ah, but it's like a hundredth of the value of how things went on the vaccine front at best and on the vaccine front. We really nonetheless did quite well because we learned some lessons already. We've kind of forgotten them under Biden right.
01:19:11.41
cactuschu
Yeah I think that.
01:19:15.64
Tyler
They won't do operation warp speed for the next generation now on the new booster they are hurrying it up. Biden actually did push through the boosters when the private sector jackasses on the Fda were resigning from the committee. That's a case where like Biden's the hero. The private scientists or the villain but our government did the right thing.
01:19:34.89
cactuschu
Mean.
01:19:43.32
Tyler
I mean.
01:19:43.35
cactuschu
I Think that is the biggest challenge here. This is basically a difference between absolute and relative politics right? and I think relative politics is very understandable in many cases you want to D risk Or. Ah, you want to de-risk certain projects, you want to make sure that they're not and that there aren't any kind of greatly unexpected consequences. Think that those are all things that are to be considered. But I think that I mean.
01:20:16.95
cactuschu
The argument of oh the American Legal system would be even more obstructive I'm not sure if I'm not sure if that is something that actually disentangles the problem right? If they're.
01:20:34.10
Tyler
Um, companies need a clearance to do this stuff.
01:20:35.23
cactuschu
I mean I'm not. I'm not as familiar with it as you are certainly but I don't think there's anything stopping those laws from being changed as well right? You just want to.
01:20:44.39
Tyler
There's so many courts in the Us. Maybe you could say too many There's not any single wave of the wand way you can in a simple way, give companies the clarity they need to proceed in a way that is as powerful. As Fda approval I wish there were already in law vicarious liability waivers for the companies. Ah, but they want the Fda sign off and they're not crazy to feel that way like they're kind of profit maximizing as companies right.
01:21:11.79
cactuschu
Right? So white.
01:21:19.00
Tyler
And a complex way.
01:21:21.29
cactuschu
Right? So is there? No way of constructing that kind of sign off just without any kind of ah Fda process at all like is there some like legal fixture that gives the Fda specifically that authority or can you just can you just. A sign that sortity to says something like the president or congress. I mean assigning it to congress has different problems but can you just sign it to the president?
01:21:40.60
Tyler
Well, you can say it has been assigned to the president in congress and that's what the Fda is right? It's part of the fourth branch of government somewhat accountable to both president and congress in complex ways. Ah, the president won't do it personally just like we have a fed no one in congress or the white house wants to be responsible for monetary policy but the liability waivers in law don't seem to make companies happy enough. They really really want the extra layer of Fda. Yeah, say so.
01:22:16.52
Tyler
So I don't think we can abolish that but look we can make it quicker. We did make it quicker and we're making it quicker again with the new boosters ready after Labor day. So it's not totally hopeless to improve that thing.
01:22:29.83
cactuschu
I would say I would say on an absolute level I mean. Okay this is this is the kind of difficulty here. It's it's very difficult to even assess things on the absolute level from this framework. And I'll kind of give the counterpoint you've already had so many things de-risked with Mrna vaccines that on the absolute level. The process should not ah should not only have been shorter than than the process for initially testing the Mrna vaccines which should have been significantly shortish have been.
01:23:02.15
Tyler
Um.
01:23:07.19
cactuschu
Even if you just take the exact same levels of delays if you just cut out the initial risk that was necessary with the um mrna technology as a whole right from my knowledge from my technical knowledge of the aomicron vaccines. They are. They're exactly the same technology There's been no change in the actual process that embeds them and so the first four months of that can be cut out right? So is it and it's not more than four months faster so it's like actually this is a slowdown but I I think that the difficulty with this is that. Looking at things from that kind of absolute level is basically irrelevant when you look at these types of bureaucracies.
01:23:50.58
Tyler
Well I'm just saying there's a lot of variation in bureaucratic performance and this time around the Fda you know, put in peak performance of all time could have been much better I agree the tople stuff and all that the. Hold on hold the trial so we get more minorities enrolled. They're not doing human challenge trials. I would completely agree with the critics on all those issues but at the end of the day I still see that we made a huge improvement in how we do things in that sense. The elites are not that hopeless. And like Trump drove part of it but the elites had to go along with it. They're entirely capable of thwarting him when they want to be.
01:24:32.40
cactuschu
Yeah I Think if every single company if every single company wanted to sort him? Yeah, Ah I Definitely agree that it could be worse I don't want distort that Yeah,, there's there is there's much deeper that I can pursue with this but quite frankly I think that we've we've. Spent a lot of time and a lot of and dance back and forth. Ah, where there's we're quickly hitting diminishing returns so to what degree? do you think people when you're looking for talent right. To what degree. Do you think people own people. Ah, people's lack of confidence are both a a signal and talent and B an obstructor or something getting in the way of you finding talent.
01:25:19.62
Tyler
I mean I think it's both. So if someone tells me they suffer from imposter syndrome ah, in a way I'm kind of impressed like they know they don't know what they're doing it tends to be correlated with the person at least drawing something somewhat ambitious. At the same time sooner or later they have to get over it and get on with things. So the Peter Teel point that you're looking for like dialectical opposites in a person like extreme confidence but also a certain lack of confidence that's probably a better way to think of it than either.
01:25:42.65
cactuschu
Um.
01:25:52.83
cactuschu
Boom.
01:25:55.33
Tyler
Looking for the confident people, a lot of whom are just like blundering fools and inflexible or the people who have no confidence. I mean they're really not going to succeed very much either. So some kind of weird mix of both confidence and lack of confidence and then something clicks when you find that right Mix. It's a bit like introversion and extroversion.
01:26:17.75
cactuschu
Right? And then I don't think that's quite the question I was looking to Pursue. So I think that you have people and cultures that are very. In the degree in which they incentivize either confidence to pursue these things or lack of confidence to pursue these things right? and
01:26:43.21
Tyler
Sure like their endpoints. It seemed to make people really confident. They could do something greater than antiquity and that seems to have had a very positive effect.
01:26:56.29
cactuschu
Um, so do you see that kind of confidence inspiring as significant.
01:27:00.83
Tyler
Oh sure and you see it in the Bay area in the tech world. Ah you see it in crypto communities I think it's been a bit shaken but it's mostly still there. Ah you're seeing it in kind of new cities movements highly uncertain like everyone still is any of this going to work.
01:27:06.90
cactuschu
This is it.
01:27:18.68
Tyler
But a lot of people are trying interesting things and those would be a bunch of areas right now where we see those kinds of confidences.
01:27:29.44
cactuschu
Right? And do you see this especially in America do you see this is ah this confidence as a trend line that's going up or down.
01:27:39.95
Tyler
Ah, maybe the variance is increasing but we're a relatively confident country compared to western europe ah, and I I don't feel. It's all being destroyed but I do think there's a big mental health problem in the Us right now. And a significant portion of us are just like failing even to show up for work properly like I would grant that.
01:28:02.20
cactuschu
Right? This is incredibly interesting because I made the same observation quite a long time ago and I think some other people have made this observation as well. That Generation Z is essentially the divergent generation right? that.
01:28:15.36
Tyler
Yeah.
01:28:18.53
cactuschu
And you see so many people who are piling up on the top end but you see also a lot of people who are piling down on the bottom end as well I think on.
01:28:22.99
Tyler
But if you think you know for innovation at least a variance increasing move will help you I'm not saying it helps you for all social problems. But definitely it does for innovation.
01:28:37.28
cactuschu
Yeah, that seems to be the thing with the United States is that it's a very It's a very high variance country in a way. It's a very polarized country not in the political sense but in the sense that most problems that's. That is essentially based on people on the tail end people on the positive tail end are going to be quite good. Most problems that are based on people not on the bottom end like crime for example are the most obvious. The United States is quite bad compared to other western countries. Yeah.
01:29:11.13
Tyler
Ah, if by what yeah western europe yes, but keep in mind what people mean by the west is tricky excuse me like is North Macedonia a part of the west. Well it kind of is right? It's Europe, it's in Nato but at the same time.
01:29:24.50
cactuschu
That's fair.
01:29:28.80
Tyler
If you compare a lot of even the downside of the US to North Macedonia, the US is not going to look that bad. It's not all like a second tier city in the Netherlands that we're talking about here.
01:29:41.17
cactuschu
Yeah.
01:29:47.90
cactuschu
So something that I'm actually interested in is in your and I mean I don't want you to completely speak for Daniel but you have what's in the book. Daniel gross the co-author of your latest book. What? what? Ah what problems with interviewing.
01:29:50.34
Tyler
Um, there.
01:30:05.20
cactuschu
Do you think the interviewer is basically self-deceiving? Not no, not being very clear with what they actually want to do in the interview.
01:30:11.59
Tyler
Well I think a lot of companies and nonprofits in particular think they're so innovative and like game changing and world altering that they tell themselves a lot of b s stories and then they feel they've got to go out and hire people. Can fulfill that and the institution to begin with is not that important. So. There's this disconnect between what they actually do and what they think they do. You know they're believing too much of their own pr and I see that problem a lot. That would be 1 example but I'm not sure. That's answering your question visa v daniel you're like so looking for whether this person could be a great innovator and you're not taking enough account of just durability and persistence.
01:30:49.51
cactuschu
So how does that manifest in interviewing?
01:31:04.59
Tyler
And maybe understanding how the Dc policy environment works something like pretty mundane you undervalue the mundane.
01:31:12.84
cactuschu
Right? So there are just basic competencies. You want 1 engineer who will just hack at it day after day and not necessarily someone who is like a thinker ah in ah, kind of.
01:31:16.52
Tyler
Yes, and a lot of the most effective people on policy are not that Brilliant. It may even be a negative correlation but they hack away at it forever and they know how to build networks and coalitions and so On. And that's correlated with intelligence but not that much in a way above a certain level.
01:31:39.83
cactuschu
Right? There's this metaphor you've probably heard of by Nasimteleb of Fat Tony right? The guy who is not necessarily. Not necessarily highly educated. Not necessarily familiar with very complex theoretical models of the world. But you know he just kind of knows what works and he sticks to what works and he just does it over and over.
01:31:58.19
Tyler
Yeah, my friend and I used to call this the Mike Lambert principle. There was someone in our high school named Mike Lambert. I don't know how he ended up doing but at least at the time we thought he had these qualities. Maybe he's a washout lying in a gutter somewhere right.
01:32:14.45
cactuschu
Oh My to me? What's very interesting about this is that there are a lot of interviewers. Actually this is kind of doubting this. This line is based on what we already said but I think a lot of interviewers are very much facing the opposite problem where they're basically just overfitting right? So They have a set of I see this especially with small companies. They have a set of engineers that have basically certain cultural habits. The the obvious way to to say this right is that there are a bunch of interviewers who will be heavily biased towards basically just like linux users and they're all of these like hyper parameters that are not that useful, but that are very much based on what the interviewers feel as a kind of vibe of the type of person that they want.
01:33:09.58
Tyler
Um, sir.
01:33:10.97
cactuschu
And that there's a lot of overfitting on that. Ah, do you see this happening a lot?
01:33:12.87
Tyler
Absolutely fully agree and your example is a good one.
01:33:20.69
cactuschu
Right? Ah, do you see this as a kind of systematic problem, a problem of incentives or just like an inevitable human nature thing. Oh.
01:33:26.44
Tyler
I Mean a bit of both. You know, part of the issue there, like your example, is so good that it applies to a lot of the world that if that big part of the world woke up and tried to do better collectively as a whole it couldn't do that much better. Maybe there's not enough talent to go around everywhere and make that much of a difference. So Some of this is just inevitable and if your company is somewhat larger and has bureaucratic hiring processes it needs to hire a lot of people at once like you just can't get that creative with it Even if it ideally might be better if you could.
01:34:01.30
cactuschu
Wait, Really? so you think that interviewing particularly for fairly large companies is basically as close to a solution or as close to the maximal as it can be.
01:34:09.98
Tyler
I think in absolute terms It's quite terrible but given legal constraints and bureaucracies I don't think it will ever get that much better and I don't think Daniel and I intended the book as a manual for those companies. But there were just a lot of positions vcs funding. You know a startup person or like who should be the director of a nonprofit or who should be the next Ceo that is fundamentally different from just who you know. Three hundred and seventy second in the row of the next software engineer hired by Microsoft and it's for those more discretionary hires that I think our recipes are more useful.
01:34:57.24
cactuschu
Right? That point definitely came through in the book. But it's actually quite surprising to me that you think that even given the bureaucratic constraints interviews are not necessarily optimized. That's not the right word but basically a stale field right.
01:35:15.14
Tyler
Like you need the interviewer to be better right? You can give the best advice in the world. But if the interviewer can't and won't digest it. You're just stuck so our book is for those interviewers who can digest it. What percentage of the world is that I'm not sure. But
01:35:16.58
cactuschu
Ah, because to me. Yeah, exactly.
01:35:33.84
Tyler
Clearly it's quite a minority in it. If anything , the book is a guide for those being interviewed, like how to think about your own talent and that it's useful for just about everyone. I think we say that but a lot of people haven't quite internalized it.
01:35:40.68
cactuschu
Has.
01:35:49.44
cactuschu
Right? To me this and to me there are very simple ideas that I think most people, most interviewers I guess maybe like middle middle upper class people can grasp. Would significantly improve most interviewing processes and those are just the ideas of status and self-deception that in many cases people are lying to themselves people are not expressing their true motives and that there are actually correlations that you can draw from this and in a way I see like pop psychology especially blank slates as being just. Just an extreme poison because in a lot of cases right? You talk about this with different cultures. I'm Chinese. Chinese people think of this pre-pre Obviously like obviously there are people who are not necessarily like very. Very kind of scientific notion of self-deception and status and evolutionary psychology but just saying people's intentions are highly suspect. I think that that's something that's assumed in many areas of the world. That's not assumed in the west and that if. It becomes something else more widely assumed than those interviewers will significantly improve and I don't think it's a complicated idea right.
01:37:02.91
Tyler
Yeah, that makes sense I agree I mean everyone should have a marginal dose of Robin Hanson I wrote about this in my early book discover your inner economist 2006
01:37:17.60
cactuschu
Um, yeah, Robin is great and I guess this ultimately boils down to how I think about institutions as well. Maybe this is my last gap so I'm trying to convince you of this.
01:37:33.55
cactuschu
I think that there's this very very funny quote which is that China is in China is the country with the least successful chinese people which is also statistically true. It's literally true and that's part of what makes it a great quote. But
01:37:41.71
Tyler
Um, yeah.
01:37:50.60
Tyler
Again.
01:37:52.14
cactuschu
I think about Chinese culture. There's this idea of truth always coming to term and of corrupt Motives always being weeded out in the end part of you can see this part of this is like. Kind of mythological and not really empirical in any way like the mandate of heaven is kind of like this and you know like how is the mandate of heaven doing right now. Not so great. Um, but it's not necessarily.
01:38:14.54
Tyler
Right? yeah.
01:38:24.81
cactuschu
Important as a literal truth but important as basically like a social script right? an orientation towards how you approach things and I think that when you apply this to the west when you apply this kind of outsider lens to the west it becomes obvious. There are a lot of basic social tricks that are accepted that if you have this very basic kind of axiom can be verified more empirically if you have this very basic assumption that actually people are constantly deceptive about their motives. Um, the answer is just why are you? Why would anyone fall for this right? and ah and I have many relatives and many friends who see this and I think that that's true. A lot in politics actually involves right wingers as much as left wingers. Although I think wokm is particularly bad in this aspect of basically saying like oh they were well-intentioned. Oh you know, even if they significantly increased the crime rate and consequently lowered the income of Africanamerican you know those ngos were well-intentioned and I think that in many other cultures. No one. No one would even take this like they would just laugh at you if you suggested that as a defense for those people like if people are well-intentioned or if people claim good intentions and then they continually fail and then you have to be accustomed to basically saying like this rhetoric is absurd.
01:39:56.47
cactuschu
And anyone who tries to engage in this type of rhetoric should be basically barred from any type of power.
01:40:00.26
Tyler
Just to note that I have only 4 minutes left and then I need to leave for lunch but I would put it this way. The United States is an especially protestant puritan society in a way that few other places are and that leads to all this focus on intent. Um, but it also has upsides that we're so protestant so you know the bad side of volkism comes from our protestant heritage in my opinion. Other people have written on this but the notion of America as a country where so many people like have these projects and ambitions. That also comes from protestantism and how much we can unpack that bundle and keep the good and eject the bad I'm never sure.
01:40:45.22
cactuschu
It seems pretty counterintuitive to me that those ideas would be linked but it's yeah, it's quite interesting and so the last question of the show. Always always the last question of the show is what is something that has too much chaos and needs more order. And something has too much order and needs more chaos and hopefully something we haven't talked about yet.
01:41:04.90
Tyler
So something that has too much chaos and needs more order would be I suppose the city of Chicago it has both crime chaos and fiscal chaos and it's in danger of losing its status as a truly major north American City something that could use more chaos I don't know how about Newfoundland I've never been there but does it have enough recent migrants at half a million people I suspect it doesn't but it's probably fairly predictable in some ways so some different parts of Canada could use a bit more chaos.
01:41:25.78
cactuschu
Citizen.
01:41:40.84
Tyler
Would be my intuition.
01:41:43.79
cactuschu
Yes I think Canada as a whole is a surprisingly ordered society. It would be yeah pretty ah unintuitive intuitive to a lot of people but very ordered society and definitely could use a lot more chaos. Well thanks for coming on.
01:41:55.68
Tyler
Very good chatting with you and let me know when it's out, take care.
Yechh, this is such a hard to read (bad?) transcript that I almost wish I had listened instead of read it all. I remain surprised, and disappointed, at how lousy so much fully automated voice-to-text remains.
Content was pretty good, tho your occasional disagreements with Tyler were often not so clear. Based on your de-anonymizing from July, I'd expect to see Brian (or Brianchau) instead of your old handle of cactuschu (which I did sort of like).
Early on you made a great point about metrics and evaluation:
"there are people who will try to subvert any metric who will not actually be competent in the ways that you want them to be competent." Such gamers often succeed more than they deserve in the short term.
It was sad but important to read about Tyler's support for Wokism, tho neither of you differentiated it from Human Rights (mostly negative rights against violations). I see India & Saudi Arabia as denying women full human rights, thus putting legal barriers stopping them from acting in ways it's legal for men to act. Indian male acceptance of rape, a clear violation of the woman's right to say "no", was a strong example. Opposing rape & castes, which stop free movement and intermarriage, seems different qualitatively from the Woke semi-religious ideal of sexual or racial equal outcomes.
It's pretty silly, stupid even to expect any society to have 50% of the people who are pregnant be male, and 50% female. That's the unequal biological binary. That's where US Wokism is terrible. It's good to expect that legal sex between men and women depends on mutual consent - so rape is and should be illegal - and India progresses, as did America, when it believes more women and especially when it protects more women. But not all.
All systems have false positives and false negatives, and most attempts to reduce one type of error increase the other.