I was DOGE-curious and DOGE-skeptical. That means on net I was more optimistic about DOGE than about the Trump administration broadly, which I just assumed was going to be terrible -- full stop. I've had to seriously revise my priors in light of the past several months. DOGE was a disaster, and somehow seems to be have distinguished it...

I graduated high school in 2008. UNC, like many colleges, gave its freshman class a summer reading assignment and expected students to arrive in the fall prepared to discuss it. That year, the book was Covering by Kenji Yoshino. This reading assignment was serendipitous samizdat for an out-ish gay boy from rural Georgia in 2008. In bri...

The FT writes today about Ukraine's worsening fiscal situation. “The US Treasury warned that emergency measures such as money-printing being used by Kyiv to prop up its public finances risked damaging its ability to provide critical public services over time, underscoring the need for allies to meet commitments to provide tens of billi...

Chesa Boudin has been recalled. In my opinion, he deserved to be recalled. I voted for the recall. Opponents for the recall offered two narratives; one which was reasonable and irrelevant, and the other just false. Reasonable and irrelevant: Chesa is unfairly being unfairly singled out as the cause of a number of ailments facing San Fr...

In the original movie from 1986, the strategic enemy was pretty amorphous, but you knew it was the Soviet Union. "MiGs" were really the only name they were given, but clearly that is a Russian fighter plane. That was ok because the movie isn't about geopolitics, it's about personal struggle. That external foe is also pretty incidental ...

After the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, I wrote about an incongruity in the outrage around the not guilty verdict in light of the fact that Rittenhouse presented some compelling evidence that he acted in self defense. I suggested that people take pause and think about what a present danger guns are for many people, particularly in minority c...

One would be forgiven for not following the Luna/Terra death spiral. If it wasn't for Matt Levine, I would have given up on understanding crypto a long time ago. Even now, my eyes have a tendency to glaze over. But this one is interesting because it gets right at the Icarian nature of some crypto projects. Anyway, here is Matt: “TerraU...

Fifty or so days ago, when the Ukraine invasion had just begun, I summarized some takes that seemed thoughtful and some that seemed foolish, and wrote down what I hoped we would see play out in policy. I summarized by saying: “The United States is not responsible for the evil perpetrated by the despots in these places; but, having inse...

Here are a few things I have been reading about Ukraine that are interesting takes. Robert Wright, a liberal internationalist (not entirely sure if he calls himself that) has consistently posited that the United States foreclosed possibilities that would have avoided war. Bob has a plausible claim for inventing the term "the Blob," and...

So it turns out that Lewis Carroll was obsessed with designing a better voting method. One well known problem is similar to the rationale for Ranked Choice Voting systems we have today: how do you account for the fact that the person who gets the most votes might not be the most broadly liked? “Carroll proposed a number of alternative ...

The Matrix: Resurrections is really not very good although it is beautifully shot and makes San Francisco show well. Nevertheless, the idea of The Matrix — the world building aspect of the story — is intriguing. A few thoughts came to my mind after seeing Resurrections. “Io” is the new “Zion.” It’s a refuge for surviving humans in the ...

I wanted to write a year-end retrospective about ways in which my thinking about important topics evolved in 2021. I came into the year with different orientations than I ended the year with. Things that happened either weren’t anticipated, or surprised me in ways that challenged my thinking and called for revision. I have no idea if I...

Public discourse around crime is broken in the Bay Area and a lot of progressive parts of the country. Progressives don't want to be seen as being too harsh on criminals. They are aware that criminality has roots in a number of social justice issues which they want to retain sympathy toward (racism, poverty, guns, wealth inequality). A...

I don’t have anything to say about the Kyle Rittenhouse case, but I do have some thoughts about self defense. I am pretty left leaning when it comes to guns. I don’t like guns. I grew up in a house with hunting weapons. I gave it a shot (haha) but I didn’t like hunting. It’s just not for me. I recognize, however, that we live in a coun...

This is going to be a fun game we get to play the rest of the year. Here's a chart of data for cases and hospitalization from the city's data tracker. Please note that hospitalization data includes both confirmed and Person Under Investigation ("PUI"). My thinking is that these people are taking up capacity for illness even if it ends ...

Matt Levine writes: “Ordinarily, there are two distinct important events in the life of a SPAC company, generally quite separate in time: One day the company is created, and then, probably years later, it announces a SPAC merger. Here … look, it’s ambiguous, but doesn’t it seem like the company was created to do the SPAC merger? It’s n...

You hear a lot that wearing a mask "isn't a big deal." Personally, I don't mind it terribly - if anything I am more annoyed by the theater of it. Walking into a restaurant with it on and taking it off at the table is bizarre from a relative risk standpoint, and it's tedious. On the other hand, it's even more more tedious to remove it b...

A big part of The Blob's argument for staying in Afghanistan indefinitely is that "we can afford it." As far as I can tell, and I am only being mildly facetious, this means that for a few tens of billions of dollars a year we can continue to bounce the rubble of a ruined country with bombs and help the now defunct Afghan army sustain t...

Whenever I think about our intractable military commitments, I consider the fallacy of sunk costs. People believe we owe something to the past by continuing the fight in the name of honor or dignity. The reality is that the costs of war will never be repaid. We should only make decisions based on future payoffs. The toothpaste rule app...

Here’s a thought: where is the journalistic outlet that has variable pricing by writer? Substack has exposed how underpaid the best writers are by legacy publications. The internet makes it very easy for them to pull the rip cord, taking their audience to platforms where they can charge market rates for their content. But Substack does...

I wanted to take a moment to flesh out what I think is an inconsistency in how people think they apply logic and reason to their beliefs. Some ideas by their very nature are unreasonable, or should warrant a great deal of skepticism, even if their details appear to be grounded in evidence. A good illustration of this is the idea that w...

Update: Jacob Grier has an amazing substack post in which he lays out an evolution from “libertarian” to “liberal” that I strongly identity with. And he has his own thoughts on the democracy axis (emphasis mine below). Let’s make the democracy axis happen! “Something important has changed, however. It’s just not about specific policies...

It is hardly a hot take to proclaim that we are in a period of hyper-tribalism. Admittedly, I have only been on earth 31 years and have a tentative view on what happened here before I was around. Relative to even a few years ago, though, it feels like polarization around some (not all!) culture war issues has dramatically heightened, a...

Palm Springs is a place that I have always felt particularly at ease. Incremental development seems to be optimized for bachelorette parties but the old Hollywood and mid century charm manages to endure. And of course there is something special about renting a house in the desert with a pool and view of the mountains. - Cameron Parker

I was recently listening to a Clubhouse discussion sponsored by GrowSF, in which members interviewed Supervisor Asha Safaí. GrowSF is a concerned citizens group that is pushing on a number of fronts to improve San Francisco city governance. This discussion was centered on the Board of Education and school reopening. I am not going to w...

For those unfamiliar, the phrase “crossing the river by feeling the stones” (摸着石头过河) is attributed to Deng Xiaoping. It was the method by which the “Reform and Opening” program was meant to take China, ever so cautiously, step by step, from its failed centrally planned experiment into a socialist mixed economy. I love this phrase and I...

**tap tap** Is this thing on?