Best Links from the Old Year

Most clicks are simply forgotten, but these have stuck with me.

This year I made a point of saving links to the best bits of the internet I came across. Whether they were tweets, podcasts, or blog posts I did my best to record them somewhere that would be easily searchable, often simply in the notes app of my phone. I hope you find something you like.

Around the Web

1. Beating addiction is common

“When I stopped shooting coke and heroin, I was 23. I had no life outside of my addiction. I was facing serious drug charges and I weighed 85 pounds, after months of injecting, often dozens of times a day.

But although I got treatment, I quit at around the age when, according to large epidemiological studies, most people who have diagnosable addiction problems do so—without treatment.” (Link)

2. Male employment is at Great Depression levels

Source

3. What activities are happiest?

Found here

4. He wasn’t wrong about everything

   “Freud’s general assertion that sexuality can be shaped by childhood experiences is supported elsewhere in Google and PornHub data, which reveals that men, at least, retain an inordinate number of fantasies related to childhood.” (Link)

5. Cross-border plasma donation

   “The U.S. is one of the few countries that allow payments for plasma. Up to 10% of U.S. plasma collected nationwide comes from Mexican nationals, who get paid roughly $50 to donate.” (Link)

6. Voting demographics

Will Marble @wpmarble

But applying our approach, we see Black and Latino voters contributed *more* net votes to Biden in ‘20 than to Clinton in ‘16. These voting blocs are increasingly important parts of the Democratic coalition.

7. Trustworthy institutions often change their mind

Robin Hanson @robinhanson

Yes, the source that backtracks more often is likely more honest, following the rational random walk. But then why do authoritative sources like WHO tend to take the other strategy, of waiting to change until they are pretty sure of the direction?

Robin Hanson @robinhanson

2 sources give estimate E(t) of some truth at times t=0,1,..,99,100. They have same value of E(0), E(100), but different other E(t). N is how many of the 100 updates E(t)-E(t-1) have same sign as overall update E(100)-E(0). For one N = 90, other N=55. Which do you trust more?

8. Paging Richard Hanania

Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb

Women revolutions are harder to repress, and not just in Iran. Remember that they represent 50% of the population and are more educated, more sophisticated, more cohesive, yet more repressed than men.

Golnaz Esfandiari @GEsfandiari

Unprecedented scenes in Iran: woman sits on top of utility box and cuts her hair in main square in Kerman to protest death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. People clap their hands and chant “Death to the dictator.” #مهسا_امینی https://t.co/2oyuKV80Ac

9. "Rule of Three" for Addressing Miscommunication [Instagram Short]

10. The Feminization of Muse [the rock band, Youtube Short]

11. The culture of Twitter in two tweets

Professor pRoblems. @85roblems

@AgnesCallard I respect your ability to post through it. I hope if the internet ever comes for me that I have the resolve you do. That being said… you seem like a deeply evil person and I feel bad for everyone in your life; especially your children.

Alban Brooke @AlbanBrooke

"[On Twitter] by 2019 you could get mobbed by angry librarians, or Saturday Night Live fans, or history professors. The only defense against an angry mob was to get your own angry mob. Twitter felt like a prison, and in prison you need a gang to survive."

noahpinion.substack.comThe internet wants to be fragmentedThrowing the whole world into a single room together doesn’t work.

12. Peter Thiel observations to ponder

Frederik Gieschen @NeckarValue

Peter Thiel: "We’re a macro fund paid to identify markets that are enormously mispriced. Almost every MBA I talk to simply doesn’t have an answer. It’s always intelligent, well-thought-out stuff, but there are no strongly held views."

Infovores @ageofinfovores

“Most people… miss how devout @peterthiel is. They all assume he is an unfeeling techno-Vulcan. And yet one of his main theories about the world is about how little people trust their own feelings.“

13. Cal Newport has a very good book about this

Paul Graham @paulg

@robinhanson The source of the confusion is the misleading use of the word "passion." It's really more a figure of speech when used in this context; one is so interested in something that it's like a passion. Plus the word "passion" is pretty vague to begin with. I avoid it.

14. Avoiding truth

“The great mass of people form their political beliefs with little regard for facts or logic. However, the elites also have a strategy for avoiding truth. Elites form their political beliefs dogmatically, using their cleverness to organize facts to fit preconceived prejudices. The masses’ strategy for avoiding truth is to make a low investment in understanding; the elites’ strategy is to make a large investment in selectively choosing which facts and arguments to emphasize or ignore.”

That is from Arnold Kling. And here is my recent interview with Arnold.

15. Speaking from personal experience.

Nathan Cofnas @nathancofnas

The philosophy establishment claims to trace its intellectual lineage back to Socrates, but its true lineage goes back to the Athenians who killed him.

16. Most regretted college majors

Garett Jones, in L.A. Jan 4-9 @GarettJones

"Of graduates who regretted their major, most said that, if they could go back, they would now choose computer science or business administration instead."

17. History of the girl scouts

David Epstein @DavidEpstein

7/ She read up on @girlscouts, and was stunned to learn it was founded 8 yrs before women could vote, and the founder had reminded girls that they could be "a doctor, a lawyer, an aviatrix, or a hot-air balloonist." Frances ended up w/Troop 17 for 8 yrs, till they graduated h.s.

18. How to identify an infovore?

Daniel Gross @danielgross

What are one-word shibboleths that identify a true infovore? E.g. — Dec 2017: Transformer Dec 2019: SARS-CoV-2 Jan 2020: Chloroquine Nov 2020: Semaglutide April 2021: VQGAN May 2021: EleutherAI May 2022: ???

19. Mating inequality

Chris Williamson @ChrisWillx

"Compared to 2002, men overall had the same number of partners in 2013. But the top 20% of men had a 25% increase in sexual partners, and the top 5% of men had a 38% increase." — @CostelloWilliam 🔗 spoti.fi/3BHCCk1

20. Tyler Cowen was right

“70% of Gen Z viewers tend to watch videos with subtitles, which is why a team at Netflix worked extra hard on the subtitles for Stranger Things.” (Link)

Podcasts

Note that these are podcasts I listened to in 2022, not necessarily ones that were released in 2022.

Must Listen

1. Jerry Bowyer and Peter Thiel

On the Bible, the Holocaust, wokeness and much else. Also includes some genuine instances of accelerationism I found quite interesting.

2. Russ Roberts and Devon Zuegel

Cryptocurrency in Argentina.

3. Laura Shin and Martin Shkreli

On SBF, but more generally the criminal justice system and the culture of prison. I was surprised to find I could relate to many of Shkreli’s experiences.

4. Brian Chau and Michael Gibson

Based on the very good “Paper Belt on Fire”, plus other topics. One great excerpt—“In movies, the only person who has a plan is the bad guy.”

5. Tim Ferriss and Jerry Seinfeld

“If you’re going to write, make yourself a writing session. What’s the writing session? I’m going to work on this problem. Well, how long are you going to work on it? Don’t just sit down with an open-ended, “I’m going to work on this problem.” That’s a ridiculous torture to put on a human being’s head.

It’s like you’re going to hire a trainer to get in shape, and he comes over, and you go, “How long is the session?” And he goes, “It’s open-ended.” Forget it. I’m not doing it. It’s over right there. You’ve got to control what your brain can take.”

Highly Recommended

6. Richard Hanania and Tyler Cowen

A rare occasion where I have seen Tyler truly challenged by an interview.

7. Jordan Peterson and Jean Twenge¹

He is becoming a bit underrated I think.

8. Ethan Strauss and Tyler Cowen

How to find talent in sports.

9. Russ Roberts and Penny Lane

“Very few people would say Kenny G is making art. I don't know that I would say he's making art, even though I'm trying to be open-minded about what art is. There's something inside me that says, 'Yeah, but this isn't really art.'.. [but] those people who would say all he does is write popular melodies, that, well, clearly they've never tried to write a popular melody because it's incredibly hard.”

10. Russ Roberts and Luca Dellanna

“'We think we have a decision-making problem, but we have an action-taking problem.' And, that's the thing. Like, usually we tend to solve the problem from an analytical point of view. We say, like, 'Oh, I know that I need to lose weight. I need to find the best the diet, or I need to find a way in which I do it.'

But, usually the answers that we have on that side are already quite good enough. The problem is that our brain somehow doesn't implement them.

And the reason why it doesn't implement them is if it believes that the expected emotional outcome of implementing them is negative.”

I got a lot out of these, but might just be me…

11. Tyler Cowen and Vaughn Smith

“Vaughn Smith is fluent in eight languages but with a beginner’s grasp of at least thirty-six (and counting). His talents are so remarkable that the Washington Post did a feature story on him and neuroscientists at MIT requested he do a brain scan for them. But for Vaughn his language skills aren’t about attracting attention or monetary gain.”

12. David Wright and Tyler Cowen on Talent

Tyler Cowen: 45:36

If you want a Straussian reading, I'll give you one for “Conversations with Tyler.” It's a series of talent interviews designed to test people, and they're really hard. And the grades are not handed out. There's no hire or fire decision at the end. But that's one way to think about the podcast, which is not stated upfront, anytime that I can recall.

David Wright: 45:55

And how does that process change how you think about the person? Does it really?

Tyler Cowen: 46:03

Absolutely. Oh, it really changes how I think about people.

David Wright: 46:06

And how you would read their subsequent work?

Tyler Cowen: 46:08

Yes. Or in some cases, stop reading their subsequent work.

13. Lex Fridman and Magnus Carlsen

Self-recommending.

14. Dwarkesh Patel and Bryan Caplan

Listening to this made me so excited to try podcasting, I finally got up the nerve to do so.

15. “Christian Wiman—All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs” Poetry Unbound

A poem reading (though I mostly disagree with the analysis).

16. Lex Fridman and Jordan Peterson, or at least this clip

“Do you worry that your fame traps you… do you fear that you have become a Jordan Peterson impersonator?”

Literally me

17. Garett Jones interview

Judging by the transcript alone (audio was still WIP), I thought this was better than other interviews I saw with Garett.

18. Arnold Kling interview

Arnold is one of the most humble people alive and refers to “Under the Radar” as “a mediocre business book”. It is not a mediocre business book.

[Plus the audio sounds great.]

Blog Posts

Top 10 posts of the year, in my opinion…

“Go Republican, Young EA!” by

ColdButtonIssues

(April 13)

“The Logic of Envy” by

Rob Henderson

(June 5)

“Making the Other Side Better” by Tyler Cowen (July 19)

“On Christianity” by Nassim Taleb (August 25)

“My friends in India guessed facts about America” by

TheNeverEndingFall

(August 29)

“The Prophet and Caesar’s Wife” by

Scott Alexander

(September 1)

“How Programmers Win in Business” by

Arnold Kling

(September 2)

“The Right Kind of Anti-Intellectualism” by James Broughel (November 7)

“Thoughts on "Who Gains and Loses from the new AI?"“ by Infovores (December 17)

“Sorry, I Still Think I Am Right About The Media Very Rarely Lying” by

Scott Alexander

(December 29)

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Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, I would appreciate if you would share this article with a friend or leave a comment. What links did you like the best this year?

You can also check out my other writing at Infovores Newsletter. Over there I write reviews, conduct interviews, and generally try my best to navigate a world of infinite knowledge. You can also follow @ageofinfovores.

1. Rob Henderson has some good notes on the conversation here, but there is a paywall.

Edit: One podcast I neglected to include—not in my notes but texted to various friends after listening this year—was Russ Roberts and Chuck Klosterman from several years ago on the book “But What If We’re Wrong”. Highly Recommended. The CWT with CK was also quite good, and “The Nineties” was one of my favorite books from 2022.