Month: December 2024
The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?
This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at ~10^9 bits/s. The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained and touches on fundamental aspects of brain function: What neural substrate sets this speed limit on the pace of our existence? Why does the brain need billions of neurons to process 10 bits/s? Why can we only think about one thing at a time? The brain seems to operate in two distinct modes: the “outer” brain handles fast high-dimensional sensory and motor signals, whereas the “inner” brain processes the reduced few bits needed to control behavior. Plausible explanations exist for the large neuron numbers in the outer brain, but not for the inner brain, and we propose new research directions to remedy this.
That is by Jieyu Zheng and Markus Meister, via Rohit.
Tuesday assorted links
1. Gary Marcus and Miles Brundage bet on AI. And the Manifold odds. And Samuel Butler’s Darwin Among the Machines.
2. Addiction predictions for 2025. Includes GLP-1 predictions.
3. My podcast with Kevin Gentry on leadership and taking big chances and how much you can do.
4. “These results suggest that speech about committing murder in movies is increasing over time, even in noncrime movies, regardless of character gender.” Link here.
5, How might you store something digitally for one hundred years?
6. Africa in 2024, by Ken Opalo.
7. Joseph Walker podcast with Eugene Fama.
8. How to like everything more. Good post.
The Cows in the Coal Mine
I remain stunned at how poorly we are responding to the threat from H5N1. Our poor response to COVID was regrettable but perhaps understandable given the US hadn’t faced a major pandemic in decades. Having been through COVID, however, you would think that we would be primed. But no. Instead of acting aggressively to stop the spread in cows we took a gamble that avian flu would fizzle out. It didn’t. California dairy herds are now so awash in flu that California has declared a state of emergency. Hundreds of herds across the United States have been infected.
I don’t think we are getting a good picture of what is happening to the cows because we don’t like to look too closely at our food supply. But I reported in September what farmers were saying:
The cows were lethargic and didn’t move. Water consumption dropped from 40 gallons to 5 gallons a day. He gave his cows aspirin twice a day, increased the amount of water they were getting and gave injections of vitamins for three days.
Five percent of the herd had to be culled.
“They didn’t want to get up, they didn’t want to drink, and they got very dehydrated,” Brearley said, adding that his crew worked around the clock to treat nearly 300 cows twice a day. “There is no time to think about testing when it hits. You have to treat it. You have sick cows, and that’s our job is to take care of them.”
Here’s another report from a vet:
…the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy workers pumped gallons of electrolyte-rich fluids into ailing cows through metal tubes inserted into the esophagus.
“It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers,” he said.
Here’s Reuters:
Cows in California are dying at much higher rates from bird flu than in other affected states, industry and veterinary experts said, and some carcasses have been left rotting in the sun as rendering plants struggle to process all the dead animals.
…Infected herds in California are seeing mortality rates as high as 15% or 20%, compared to 2% in other states, said Keith Poulsen, a veterinarian and director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory who has researched bird flu.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture did not respond to questions about the mortality rate from bird flu.
Does this remind you of anything? Must we wait until the human morgues are overrun?
The case fatality rate for cows appears to be low but significant, perhaps 2%. A small number of pigs have also been infected. On the other hand, over 100 million chickens, turkeys and ducks have been killed or culled.
There have now been 66 cases in humans in the US. Moreover, the CDC reports that in at least one case the virus appears to have evolved within its human host to become more infectious. We don’t know that for sure but it’s not good news. Recall that in theory a single mutation will make the virus much more capable of infecting humans.
When I wrote on December 1 that A Bird Flu Pandemic Would Be One of the Most Foreseeable Catastrophes in History Manifold Markets was predicting a 9% probability of greater than 1 million US human cases in 2025. Today the prediction is at 20%.
Once again, we may get lucky and that is still the way to bet but only the weak rely on luck. Strong civilizations don’t pray for luck. They crush the bugs. So far, we are not doing that.
Happy new year.
Updating the best of 2024 lists
Here are my additions to the year’s “best of” movies list:
All We Imagine as Light
A Real Pain (didn’t think I would like it, but it is very good)
Green Border
A strong finish, yes?
I’ve also been listening to Two Star & the Dream Police, and Mount Eerie’s Night Palace, not recommended for most of you but very good nonetheless.
As for the end of the year surprise book, one of the very best from 2024, there is Helen Castor’s The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV. I’ll be writing more about it in 2025.
Joseph Walker on Australian migration (from my email)
I argued a few days ago that attacks on less skilled immigration might spill over and through contagion effects cause negative attitudes about immigration more generally. At which point I received the following from Joseph:
Australia, I think, shows the contagion effects are a big deal.
We have one of the most skill-biased immigration programs in the world and also one of the most successful approaches to cultural integration in the world.
A significant chunk of our net migration comes in the form of overseas students, who can be put on a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship after completing their degrees. (This program was introduced in 2001, largely to slow our population ageing.)
The international students cross-subsidise the domestic ones, and education is now Australia’s third biggest export after coal and iron ore.
Like the rest of the Anglosphere, our housing market is broken, but this can’t mostly be blamed on international students, since they don’t add to demand for the kinds of housing people are concerned about.
And yet the discourse has soured completely on migrants, especially international students.
A lot of Australian influencers copy and paste US anti-immigration talking points, even though they don’t really map over.*
(As it happens, I’ll be interviewing one of the key architects of Australia’s modern migration system in a live salon in January: https://events.humanitix.com/joe-walker-podcast-abul-rizvi.)
*To be sure, there are valid criticisms of Australian migration policy. Most notably, net migration was mismanaged and unsustainably high over the past two years, driven by a post-pandemic surge in students. In 2022-23, it exceeded 500,000 people (for context: this number is unprecedented and about double pre-pandemic levels). There has also been exuberance and an erosion of academic standards in the university sector. But these mistakes are being addressed, and the broader negativity I’m observing seems unlikely to be appeased by fixing them.
*A Complete Unknown*
I hate most biopics for their predictability, but loved this one. The Dylan character was remarkable, including his musical abilities. The film is willing to admit that Dylan might have been a jerk, no hagiography here. The Pete Seeger and Joan Baez characterizations were at least as good. It was a meaningful and instructive portrait of America in the 1960s. Everything feels real. Here is a very positive Cass Sunstein review.
As for imperfections, it bugged me a wee bit that the chronology of the songs and their order was off. And maybe it was ten minutes too long?
I think it is hard for younger people today to understand the import of Dylan. Does this movie solve that problem? I still am not sure.
Monday assorted links
Questions that are rarely asked
“Which do you think is the best symphony which you never have heard?”
It used to be the first two symphonies of Carl Nielsen, but yesterday I heard them. They are good, probably not great, but in any case I never had heard them before. I have heard more Haydn symphonies than you might think (all of them), so for me the answer is not one of those.
Perhaps now it is something by Lutoslawski? I only know two of them, and I like them. What else does this margin hold? And how long will I need to explore it?
This question gets at two issues. First, how do you assess matters you do not really know? What kinds of evidence do you bring to bear on answering this question?
Second, why do you stop at one margin rather than another? Why don’t you know whatever you think is the best symphony you have never heard? Was your last attempt in that direction such a miserable failure? Are symphonies really so bad? I think not. No matter who you are, there are still some good ones.
So what is stopping you?
What are some remaining obstacles for Milei? (from the comments)
Sunday assorted links
1. Construction Physics year-end post.
2. Independence for New Caledonia?
3. Religion in the lives of some leading intellectuals, please note prophets of the Marginal Revolution.
4. Scott Sumner on immigration.
5. Schubert and his piano sonatas (NYT).
7. Galileo Jupiter moon discovery anniversary.
8. China’s best music of 2024?
9. End of Genesys okie-dokie, and more. Full set on YouTube.
Top MR Posts of 2024!
The number one post this year was Tyler’s The changes in vibes — why did they happen? A prescient post and worth a re-read. Lots of quotable content that has become conventional wisdom after the election:
The ongoing feminization of society has driven more and more men, including black and Latino men, into the Republican camp. The Democratic Party became too much the party of unmarried women.
The Democrats made a big mistake going after “Big Tech.” It didn’t cost them many votes, rather money and social capital. Big Tech (most of all Facebook) was the Girardian sacrifice for the Trump victory in 2016, and all the Democrats achieved from that was a hollowing out of their own elite base.
Biden’s recent troubles, and the realization that he and his team had been running a con at least as big as the Trump one. It has become a trust issue, not only an age or cognition issue.
I would also pair this with two other top Tyler posts, I’m kind of tired of this in which Tyler bemoans the endless gaslighting. Tyler is (notoriously!) open-minded and reluctant to criticize others, so this was a telling signal. See also How we should update our views on immigration in which Tyler notes that serious studies on the benefits and costs of immigration are quite positive but:
…voters dislike immigration much, much more than they used to. The size of this effect has been surprising, and also the extent of its spread…Versions of this are happening in many countries, not just a few, and often these are countries that previously were fairly well governed.
…Politics is stupider and less ethical than before, including when it comes immigration…We need to take that into account, and so all sorts of pro-migration dreams need to be set aside for the time being
In short if you were reading MR and Tyler you would have a very good idea of what was really going on in the country.
The second biggest post of the year was my post, Equality Act 2010 on Britain’s descent into the Orwellian madness of equal pay for “equal” work. It’s a very good post but it wrote itself since the laws are so ridiculous. Britain has not recovered from woke. Relatedly, Britain’s authoritarian turn on free speech remains an under-reported story. I worry about this.
Third, was my post The US Has Low Prices for Most Prescription Drugs a good narrative violation. Don’t fail the marshmallow test!
Fourth was another from me, No One’s Name Was Changed at Ellis Island.
Fifth, the sad Jake Seliger is Dead.
Sixth, I’m kind of tired of this, as already discussed.
Seventh was What is the Best-Case Scenario for a Trump Presidency? Rhetorically Trump isn’t following the script I laid out but in terms of actual policy? Still room for optimism.
Eighth was Tyler’s post Taxing unrealized capital gains is a terrible idea; pairs well with my post Taxing Unrealized Capital Gains and Interest Rate Policy.
Ninth, Venezuela under “Brutal Capitalism”, my post on the insane NYTimes piece arguing that Venezuela is now governed by “brutal capitalism” under Maduro’s United Socialist Party!
Tenth, Tyler’s post Who are currently the most influential thinkers/intellectuals on the Left? More than one person on this list now looks likes a fraud.
Your favorite posts of the year?
Argentina facts of the day
Argentina’s bonds have already rallied dramatically. One gauge of the nation’s hard-currency debt, the ICE BofA US Dollar Argentina Sovereign Index, has generated a total return of about 90% this year.
Meanwhile, the S&P Merval Index has risen more than 160% this year through Monday, far outpacing stock benchmarks in developed, emerging and frontier markets alike. Adjusting for currency differences, the index is still up more than 100% in U.S. dollar terms. For comparison, the S&P 500 is up 25% over the same period.
Here is more from the WSJ. The chance of Milei succeeding is now above fifty percent.
India is having its moment
Perhaps you have noticed that India and Indians are receiving far more abuse on social media, most of all on X (Twitter). This was spurred by a number of recent debates in the Republican Party. All of a sudden, a new target was generated.
Of course this is highly unfortunate and should be condemned. Nonetheless there is a silver lining to this cloud. America as a whole has woken up to the fact that India, and Indians, are a big, big deal. Duh!
And when everyone wakes up and pays attention, a lot of abuse follows. I believe we will look back and see this last week as a watershed moment in how America thinks about India and Indians. Mostly for the better (I hope), even if it doesn’t always feel that way at the moment. Many of us will slowly start to have real opinions about these matters.
I should add that for the Republican Party there is a lot at stake. Individuals of Indian origin are a prime source of talent for the party, both today and looking forward. But how welcome will they feel? That is very much a story in the works.
When should DOGE scream in public and push for maximum transparency?
Here is a tweet from Elon, I won’t reproduce it directly on MR. Suffice to say it is strongly worded on the visas issue. Here is a summary of that debate. Much of it is about who should rise or fall in status (duh).
I have some simple, to the point free advice for the DOGERs — the public is not always with you. Making your fight more public, and putting it more on social media, is no guarantee of victory, and indeed it often boosts the chance you will lose or be stymied.
Right now there is an anti-immigration mood, for better or worse, in many countries. But how many voters (former immigrants aside) know what these different types of visas mean, or how many o1s are given out in a year? Yet a lot of influential tech people, and tech donors, know this information pretty well.
So in a non-public fight, you have a big advantage. Trump could maintain or up the number of o1 visas, or make other changes to please the tech people, and few MAGA voters would be very aware of this. But when you scream about this issue, and make it A BATTLE, suddenly it becomes “your pro-immigration sentiment vs. the anti-immigration sentiment of the voters.”
And that is a fight which is very easy to lose. It becomes “The Current Thing,” and everyone is paying attention to the new status game.
So please develop a better sense of when to keep your mouths shut and work behind the scenes.
Saturday assorted links
1. Very good Arun Rao reading list.
2. Data on AI improving the performance of human chess players. And o1 vs. Stockfish.
3. The Nat Friedman plastics report.
4. South Korea poll of the day: “South Koreans now overwhelmingly support developing nuclear weapons, with 73% in favor, reports FristPost”
5. An app to turn economics papers into podcasts.
That is from EB-CH, a cranky guy but sometimes he has good points. There are (at least) two additional problems<:
1. First, a global recession could scuttle the whole thing on the revenue side.
2. Second, Argentina (not blaming Milei here, I think he understands this) has a tendency to give up on its adjustment programs too early. A temporarily balanced budget does not reflect how a tanking of commodity prices (combined perhaps with other problems) could lead to a future financial crisis once again. The fiscal configuration has to be not only “good enough for now” but truly stress tested. Is the political system down there strong enough to see that through? I suppose we will find out.