Staged homes sell for more than empty homes
We examine the economic impact of non-consumable visual cues through home staging on high-stakes housing transactions. Using hand-collected listing photos for 15,777 transactions and a machine-learning algorithm to detect furniture, we provide the first large-scale evidence that staged homes sell for roughly 10% more and one week faster than comparable homes without furniture. Our pre-registered online experiment establishes causality and uncovers mechanisms. We find that furniture clarifies spatial use, while decor enhances emotional attachment, jointly driving the higher willingness-to-pay. These findings demonstrate how visual cues impact high-stakes decisions and systematically shape valuations in the largest asset market for households.
That is from Puja Bhattacharya, et.al., via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
Another possible cyberequilibrium? (from my email)
I would not wish to bet on this, but it is an interesting idea:
I wonder if the cyber capabilities of Mythos and future models ultimately lower the returns to ‘hacking,’ perhaps below the point where such efforts are worth investing in.
Say you’re a nefarious actor and uncover a critical, zero-day exploit in an important system. How do you extract the most value from that exploit? There are more valuable and less valuable times to deploy it, and usually the best time won’t be “immediately.” You may only get to deploy it once or a small number of times. You have to consider:
- How long do I expect the vulnerability to persist?
- What material gain do I get by exploiting it at a given time?
- How does exploiting it increase my personal risk (by focusing countermeasures in my direction)?
The answer to (1) is now “a much shorter time than before”, while 2 and 3 are mostly unchanged. In the new world, yes, exploits are much easier to find, but the expected value of a given exploit has also shrunk. The odds of an opportune moment falling within the ‘window of usefulness’ of that exploit are much lower. It’s plausible that the new equilibrium becomes “it’s not even worth spending money to find vulnerabilities in most systems, because the chances of being able to do something useful with it before it’s patched is close to zero.”
Much of the fear around cybersecurity vulnerabilities is something like: our adversaries accumulate a pile of highly damaging (to physical infrastructure, military assets, communication systems, …) exploits, which in the event of a conflict they then rapidly deploy to cause damage. Mythos would seem to favor defense here, because the usable lifetime of any exploit is much shorter. Any cyberattack that is timing-dependent now has lower utility.
Yes, there are more mundane cybersecurity concerns like ransomware or data theft, but these aren’t hugely significant in the scheme of things. And I would expect within a few years we’ll have fairly robust tools for automated vulnerability discovery and patching that any large business that cares about these things can deploy.
No doubt this assumes you can trust those in control of the leading-edge models. But even if you’re a bit behind, the situation may not be so bad. There isn’t an infinite supply of exploits, and again, most of them only need to be found ‘fast enough’ in order to mitigate the damage.
From Jacob Gloudemans.
The wisdom of Roon
renaissance rationalization is a process that commodified itself rapidly: despite the europeans discovering most technology during the early modern period it spread everywhere within a few centuries, and the rate of spread has been increasing dramatically
knowledge of the scientific frontier dissipates around the world faster as science has enabled better communication technologies. it’s getting even faster with INTELLIGENCE technologies which actually explain themselves and help you build them
as we approach more powerful intelligence, the ability to train powerful models is self commodifying rather than building a huge and runaway advantage for a handful of recursive self improvers. this is one reason why you should expect almost all of the benefits of superintelligence to be captured by the public
Here is the tweet. That said, it would be useful to relax constraints on the supply of both energy and land, so that the benefits could diffuse more widely yet.
Saturday assorted links
1. What is the chance we live inside a black hole?
2. Observations on ambition, though it is sad he does not grasp the value of Jiro.
3. A brief history of lab notebooks.
4. “Hero rat who sniffed out over 100 land mines is honored with giant statue.”
5. The new LACMA (NYT). And Hausa erotica, published on WhatsApp (NYT).
Struan Moffett on South Africa (from my email)
I think one important point you missed is that South Africa’s recent (and ancient) history has forced the population to work quite aggressively through racial differences at speeds that other developed nations have not. ‘Racial harmony’ would be a stretch, but I would say that most (all?) South African’s have a ‘racial understanding’. South Africa is also very post-racial in the sense that most understand racial differences to actually be cultural differences – for myself, growing up English in Durban, I felt more of a kinship with educated Indians than with the (white) Afrikaners. It would make absolutely no sense from a strictly Western perspective that the English and the Afrikaners (both ‘white’) couldn’t be more different!
Here is my original post.
Driving cross-country
I have driven cross-country four times, at least if you count a 3/4 trip as valid. I also have driving experience in virtually all states, including Hawaii and Alaska, neither of which would be part of typical cross-country travel.
I recommend this mode of transport highly, especially for the United States. Here are a few observations:
No matter which route you take, so often Mexican food is your best option.
I most prefer the southern route, involving Memphis, Texas, and southern Utah/north rim of the Grand Canyon. Do I have to tell you no major highways?
The extreme northern route is better than the middle route. Visit Duluth.
The music you bring is essential. While this will depend on your taste, in general try to have some regional music to match your route. Dylan and also folk music sound good in most parts of the country. CDs can be a better medium than online music for these trips. Do not listen to music when you start your day’s drive, however, as you will end up burnt out. Save it for after a few hours of driving. Nor should you listen to too much high energy music. Woody Guthrie is better than Led Zeppelin in this setting.
How much you should roll down car windows, vs. relying on air conditioning, is a critical decision. The correct answer will depend on the route and time of year, but please do not screw this one up. Usually I like windows down, but with raised windows you can hear the music better.
Salads in the Midwest can be good.
In Texas and Oklahoma you may see some amazing storms. Texas is the best state for random food stops.
Use paper maps, GPS may bring you along too efficient a route.
Issues of children aside, optimal group size is two, no larger. To avoid least common denominator effects.
You can do these trips at any pace you want, even an hour in a place can teach you a good deal.
You could do a trip simply by stopping in every interesting place in New Jersey, one of the smallest states.
I prefer Vermont to New Hampshire, at least for driving purposes. I also prefer Montana to Wyoming, the latter for me being beautiful but somehow quite a boring state outside of Yellowstone? You cannot spend too much time in Utah.
Oregon is one state where I never have been driving. Is that a great loss? I know only Portland there.
Driving cross country, or only parts of it, is the very best way to see America.
What should I ask Bob Spitz?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him, Wikipedia here. I very much enjoyed his new book on the Rolling Stones, plus he has many older books of note, including on the 1969-1970 Knicks, Woodstock, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Julia Child. All good books! He also for a while worked as manager to both Bruce Springsteen and Elton John.
So what should I ask him?
Friday assorted links
1. Trump’s focus on cultural issues (NYT).
2. Claims about Mythos (speculations). And a claim that the power of Mythos is being exaggerated.
3. The wage returns on industry credentials.
4. 2026 Roots of Progress blog-building intensive program.
5. Brian Albrecht reviews The Marginal Revolution.
6. Those new service sector jobs.
7. Harvard Crimson on Ludwig Straub.
8. How and why the Democratic Party has been evolving? Less interest in predistribution?
A market-based solution to NBA draft tanking?
Zach Lowe shares a tanking solution idea that came up in the GMs meeting that intrigued a few General Managers:
A proposal to not get rid of the draft entirely, but get rid of the draft order. Every team gets 100 draft credits let’s say. You bid your draft credits on every individual slot in the draft. You can also trade your draft credits like a veteran player for 40 draft credits if you want to go in a rebuilding direction. As teams advance in the playoffs, they lose draft credits so the best teams would have less to bid on individual picks. So you can take all your credits and bid on the number 1 pick in the draft if you want. Or if you think next years draft is better, you roll your credits over.
Can that work? Here is the tweet.
Cape Town estimate of the day
From young professionals to the working poor, many Cape Town residents complain that out-of-control housing prices have forced them to live far from the jobs, affluent schools and healthy supermarkets available in the city center. They blame deep-pocketed tourists for occupying housing in prime locations and developers for pricing them out.
Some 70 percent of the downtown residential housing stock is dedicated to hotel rooms or short-term rentals, according to a report the city released last year.
“The city’s actually being upgraded for tourists,” said Lizanne Domingo, a telemarketer. She takes a daily two-hour commute to work each way because she can’t afford to live close to the city, she said. “It’s not for our own people because the cost of living is ridiculously expensive.”
…housing prices in the city have surged 38 percent over the past six years.
Here is more from the NYT. It is one of the very best places in the world to visit right now.
South African discussions
These days South Africa is one of the best places to go to have interesting conversations. Obviously an English-fluent country does have many people following Trump, Islam in Europe, and so on. But you can have so many conversations about quite different topics, topics that are hardly covered in other parts of the world.
Like South Africa. But not only. The southern part of Africa too. People who live there are on the whole quite historically aware, since their history remains so influential on a day-to-day basis. I recall being introduced to one person who is a “Huguenot,” as his ancestors came over with the 100 or so Huguenots who came to South Africa in the 1680s. He is in fact a Huguenot.
Since the Gini coefficient of South Africa is about the same as the Gini coefficient of the world, South Africans are typically thinking about problems that are pretty close to the problems of the world as a whole. That is not usually the case for say Americans or Brits.
Few South Africans will underrate the importance of Africa for the world’s future.
It is easy to get into conversations with people from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Congo, and sometimes Nigeria. There are also readily accessible Jewish and Muslim communities, yet with perspectives different from what you might find elsewhere.
There is plenty of religion, if that is your interest. Plenty of good music too, sometimes on the street. An excellent arts scene, and past Kentridge probably you have not heard of any of the creators. The art too gives you a lot to talk about.
All sorts of tribes and languages, many of which I had never heard of before.
The European parts of the citizenry have some pre-Enlightenment origins and overall do not seem incredibly Woke. Your mileage there may vary, but again it is different from the educated classes in many other parts of the west.
Again for better or worse, but the “trad wife” phenomenon seems quite normal there, they might just use the word “wife.”
In some parts of the country, you can watch gentrification in reverse.
Most of all, South Africans have a finely-tuned sense of contingency. Things for them could go pretty well, or they could go pretty badly. Most people know that, and perhaps that is the greatest wisdom yet? Many of the rest of us try to deny that.
Visiting South Africa makes so many things transparent, or at least less opaque. Go!
New Emergent Ventures tranche on science policy and communication
American science policy is now more important than at perhaps any previous point in history—how science is organized and funded (or not funded) in this country continues to rise in significance.
I have also spoken about the undersupply of people who understand this and are trying to act on it in Washington. Unfortunately the career paths here are neither well-defined nor well-regarded. I would like to help change that.
What we’re looking for:
- Priority 1: Metascience Policy Entrepreneurs in DC
- Funding for individuals working at the intersection of science policy and institutional reform—people who can shape how Congress and federal agencies think about science funding and governance.
- Priority 2: Science and Metascience Communicators
- Funding for communicators via any medium—bloggers, journalists, authors, podcasters, artists, filmmakers, conveners, influencers, event organizers—who can expand the reach of pro-science ideas beyond their current audience.
We are doing this with and thank Renaissance Philanthropy for the support. You can apply through the regular Emergent Ventures portal.
Thursday assorted links
1. The “estrangement” from philosophy of economics.
2. Investing in scientific instruments.
3. New book coming on Carlsen vs. Niemann.
4. Houston economy growing at more than ten percent (and that is even without moving forward on bike paths).
AI, Unemployment and Work
Imagine I told you that AI was going to create a 40% unemployment rate. Sounds bad, right? Catastrophic even. Now imagine I told you that AI was going to create a 3-day working week. Sounds great, right? Wonderful even. Yet to a first approximation these are the same thing. 60% of people employed and 40% unemployed is the same number of working hours as 100% employed at 60% of the hours.
So even if you think AI is going to have a tremendous effect on work, the difference between catastrophe and wonderland boils down to distribution. It’s not impossible that AI renders some people unemployable, but that proposition is harder to defend than the idea that AI will be broadly productive. AI is a very general purpose technology, one likely to make many people more productive, including many people with fewer skills. Moreover, we have more policy control over the distribution of work than over the pure AI effect on work. Declare an AI dividend and create some more holidays, for example.
Nor is this argument purely theoretical. Between 1870 and today, hours of work in the United States fell by about 40% — from nearly 3,000 hours per year to about 1,800. Hours fells but unemployment did not increase. Moreover, not only did work hours fall, but childhood, retirement, and life expectancy all increased. In fact in 1870, about 30% of a person’s entire life was spent working — people worked, slept, and died. Today it’s closer to 10%. Thus in the past 100+ years or so the amount of work in a person’s lifetime has fallen by about 2/3rds and the amount of leisure, including retirement has increased. We have already sustained a massive increase in leisure. There’s no reason we cannot do it again.
LDS fact of the day
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown 66% this century, fueled in part by a record-breaking number of convert baptisms in 2025.
The church had 10,752,986 members at the end of 1999. The church had 17,887,212 at the end of 2025, according to an annual statistical report released Saturday during the church’s 196th Annual General Conference.
Furthermore the growth is coming in every part of the world (as a qualifier I am not sure what the outflow is). Here is the full article, via Tyler Ransom.