I haven't come across many issues as misunderstood as the supposed "death of the pub". It's here in this chart: the *number* of pubs have declined, but *employment* in pubs has increased. ons.gov.uk/businessindust….

Not sure if there is strong evidence for this, but my impression is that basically everyone overestimates their ability to figure out who is trustworthy, decent, and honest.

What do you think of the APA decision to consolidate Autism Spectrum Disorder and Asperger’s syndrome into a single category in DSM-5? I always thought Asperger’s syndrome was quite a useful and distinct category from ASD. Similarly, ‘high-functioning Autism’ seems very useful.

In 2020, Singapore police went to my house, questioned me for 12 hrs, called my parents weekly, surveilled me, seized my electronics for a year for holding a solo climate protest SG govt openly crushes free speech, and its pathetic to see Free Speech Elon promote blatant lies🧵

Baby boomers most likely age group to be wrong but think they’re right, according to the first major survey on ‘calibration’ and overconfidence in the UK. Calibration is the difference between how confident you are and how correct you are: bi.team/publications/w…

On one end of the line: ELIZA, the psychotherapist from the 60s. First chatbot to make people believe it was human. Rulebound, scripted, deterministic. Still around on the web. On the other end of the line: yr favorite LLM. How will they react? Will they know?

This is a tough call and will make some people upset, but, all things considered, I think California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill. For over 20 years, I have been an advocate for AI regulation, just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk

(1/6) Because we didn't find racial discrimination, Reviewers thought our findings were wrong and our preregistered hiring experiments were flawed, leading to repeat rejections. Some lessons we learned, as outlined in our Discussion. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/17…

My blog post critical of this re-analysis is up: matthewbjane.com/blog-posts/blo… The re-analysis conducted by Rausch & Haidt does not follow a principled statistical approach. I re-do their re-analysis with appropriate statistical methods

This RCT features politicians from five German parties. Results are potentially scalable. Given what we have seen yesterday, it’s not a magic bullet by any means, but maybe some politicians might consider including it in their repertoire when interacting with citizens.

Enjoyed this Luisa Rodriguez interview with @ezrakarger, who I've found consistently super interesting and informative on forecasting questions: 80000hours.org/podcast/episod…

RCT introduction of a pollution market in Surat, Gujarat. Pollution fell by 20–30%, and efficiently — gains came from the firms who could cut pollution most effectively. Mortality benefits are *25 times* costs. An incredible state/research collaboration. 1/2

What is the view of most YIMBYs on immigration? Something like ‘yes, higher immigration will increase prices (holding supply constant), but I support it anyway’? Or is there some argument that the effect of immigration on house prices is overstated?

Emergent Ventures winners, 37th cohort: marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…

Anyone wanna play spikeball in London today? Need a fourth! DM if you’re around.