Things I read and liked in November

1. Near Cyan on sources of alpha in various domains of life

2. “I’ll be frank with you now. The modern lists for the Seven Wonders suck.” Does he do better?

3. A GPT tutor.

4. Economic growth under transformative AI, by Phil Trammel and Anton Korinek.

5. Pierre Bayle (1702) on asymmetries between health and sickness (ht Jonathan Birch): “Sickness resembles the dense bodies, and health the rare. Health lasts many years successively, and yet contains but a small portion of happiness. Sickness continues but a few days, and yet comprehends a vast load of misery. If we had a scale adapted to weigh both a disease of fifteen days, and the health of fifteen years, we would observe the same difference that we find in the balance between a bag of feathers and a piece of lead. In one scale we would see a body which takes up a great deal of room, and in the other, one which lies in a very small compass; and yet one of them is not heavier than the other. Let us then beware of the illusion which the extension of health may draw us into, when it is paralleled with sickness.”

6. Related Limmy’s show sketch. 

7. AGI investing

8. What makes tunnel man popular? On evolution, status, and drives.

9. Shrey Jain and collaborators on “contextual confidence”.

10. Anthony Etherin still cranking out bangers.