Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

might one think that precisely because it solves only the most obviously egregious sliver of much larger real problems, passing it might render it politically more difficult to solve the more pressing rest, and so be counterproductive?

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i gotta disagree. incumbency creates in practice all kinds of advantages, democracy is people choose their leaders in the context of institutional constraints that help those choices yield good outcomes. 1/

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

among the most important constraints is turn-taking: when “we” rule we are chastened by the sure knowledge we will be ruled by others. when they rule, vice versa. 2/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

absent term limits, incumbency advantage can short circuit turn-taking, allowing entrenched incumbents to abuse power without fear of retaliation when it’s someone else’s turn. 3/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

we need term limits for Congress too, as incumbency advantage renders many positions uncontestable in both primary and general elections. 4/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

yes, i know the argument against that term limits shift power from electeds to unelected permanent staff. the answer to that is to reemphasize (which means use electoral reform to reconstruct) political parties. 5/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

political parties, not individuals, are the repository of legislative experience. when electeds draw on party staff, that staff has influence in proportion to the degree the party has won elections. /fin

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

📌

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

at least it looks like he’s trying to do it by Constitutional amendment, the legitimate but also in this case an unlikely result.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

soon… soon…

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

a bit more seriously, though yes it’d take some work to get the apparent quality high, make sure the citations are real, etc, would this be so different than the role of a think tank?

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

a great thing about LLMs, if there’s not already a literature that supports your position, there can be one pretty quickly!

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

📌

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

in business and in France, ROI is king.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

could be! he's given himself plausible deniability with stunts like this, but i don't know that i buy it, given the rest of the context that's emerged.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i could be cynical and say making yourself a hagiographic Einstein biographer is a good way to sell potential subjects on the club they'd be joining.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i'm skeptical of the benchmarks, but for the most part the qualitative reviews of DeepSeek have been pretty positive (except of course the Tiananmen Square prompts). I guess it's "distillation" all the way down, if they let OpenAI's models train it! Still seems pretty wow where they ended up.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

if the muzzling of US public health agencies is making you anxious, try a cool glass of raw milk to calm your nerves. (nb: please don't!)

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

Do you think it's bullshit, the claim that DeepSeek-R1 is basically on par with OpenAI’s o1?

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

if you know anything about Einstein… I know the dead can't file defamation suits, but i feel an exception should be made. x.com/ElonClipsX/s...

x.com

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

first DeepSeek, now a new set of models from ByteDance. hopes the US had a moat it could maintain around AI dominance seem dashed, despite the extraordinary scale (and ecological weight) of US investment and attempts to retain advantage in GPUs and advanced microchips. www.aibase.com/news/14931 1/

ByteDance Releases Doubao Large Model 1.5 Pro, Performance Surpassing GPT-4o and Claude3.5Sonnet

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

these Chinese models are much, much lighter and cheaper to run than US frontier models. will we really need to invest half a trillion dollars in AI and build special power plants (mb because Jevon's paradox), or might we just enjoy greener cheaper applications? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_... /fin

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Jevons paradox - Wikipedia

Jevons paradox - Wikipedia

Link Preview: Jevons paradox - Wikipedia
in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

📌

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

and potato chips.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i think the substack model in particular supercharges that. you get the direct dopamine of getting richer or getting poorer depending how your audience reacts. journalists and opinion writers in contexts that better insulate livelihood from audience are less likely to lose their bearings this way.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."

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