- Government clampdowns on social media are not the answer – Link, David French.
This is such a tough one – I very much agree that the first amendment rights of everyone (incl children) are too precious to suppress. But I don’t agree that it is the parents’ responsibility to regulate social media use. A vast majority of parents work multiple jobs and do not have the time or education levels to effectively regulate their children’s social media use. Many parents don’t realize the extent of the devastating impact on kids. My hypothesis is that coastal elite/ educated parents do, and therefore regulate social media usage, but most American parents don’t. Does this then, result in worsening socio-economic inequality? I don’t have an answer.. - Should we think about race and lived experience? – Link, Slate Star Codex.
- The cluster structure of thingspace – Link, Less Wrong. Very related to blog #1 above and to one of my all-time fav reads (link): the categories were made for man, not man for the categories.
- Beware isolated demands for rigor – Link, Slate Star Codex. I often think of this as “slippery slope” but this post takes it much further.. i really enjoyed the thought experiment and the (forced) conclusion
- Israel, Gaza, and double standards, including our own – Link, Nicholas Kristof (NYT Opinion)
- What can we possible say to the children of Gaza? – Link, Nicholas Kristof (NYT Opinion)
- ELI5 the Transformer paper – Link, HN
- Why the tails come apart – Link, Less Wrong. Kind of interesting, but doesn’t change my world view on anything. TLDR: Spiking insanely on any one thing reduces your probability of being above average on other things.
- How Doctors Die – Link
- Vision Pro – Link, Hugo Barra (former VP of VR at Meta). One of the most nuanced, credible, thoughtful, and practical pieces of writing on VR and the Vision Pro
- The debate over free speech, disinformation, and censorship – Link, letters to the editor (NYT).
Specifically, this letter below:
In the same way that semiautomatic guns and bump stocks were never foreseen by the founding fathers when establishing the Second Amendment, social media and A.I. escaped their prescience when it came to issues of free speech.
The commerce of ideas as they addressed it consisted primarily of public discourse via the printed or spoken word at social, political and religious gatherings. The idea that citizens would someday own portable electronic devices that facilitated both the easy manufacture and distribution of subjective realities certainly surpassed anything imagined in the Sedition Act.
America must now address two pressing questions that Madison, Hamilton and others were spared. How do we prevent the yelling of “fire” in a crowded theater when there is neither an actual theater nor an assembled crowd? And how do we stop domestic and foreign profiteers who would embrace the resultant turmoil?
Ipshita Agarwal 