"They have to take responsibility for their own country." True. But you can't expect a drowning man to suddenly know how to swim while you reel in the life preserver he'd been clinging to.

Start with base rates. Which is likelier? Politicians selflessly take blame for policy failures really due to intelligence blunders Politicians opportunistically blame policy blunders on intelligence failures

SCOOP: U.S. officials gave the Taliban a list of names of U.S. citizens, green card holders & Afghan allies to grant entry into the outer perimeter of the city’s airport, prompting outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials. politico.com/news/2021/08/2…

newyorker.com/news/daily-com… “Is the burden of feeling guilty about this also a burden veterans have to carry, too? Not only did you not care about Afghanistan....it’s like you gave such a little shit you can’t even feel bad yourself?" Phil Klay this piece rips

Policy-makers with weaker quant backgrounds prefer simpler methods of quantifying uncertainty. So, the chart below tells us the US intelligence community is aiming at low end of the sophistication continuum, not the Larry Summers/Robert Rubin end.

Experts typically make predictions by playing out dramatic scenarios in the imagination, with all its biases. Peter Scoblic and Philip E. Tetlock argue for a better way: open-minded, numerate, probabilistic. foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite… via Foreign Affairs

Started a new newsletter. Here's the intro post (and the next one in a few days is gonna be weird...). Free to subscribe! davidepstein.bulletin.com/252954303236479

In his fabulous book, Philip E. Tetlock mentioned the traits of people who are super good at forecasting. One trait that pops up: The ability & willingness to change your mind when the facts change. And a trait common in people who make awful forecasts? Extreme devotion to their stand.

There is no right to be invited to speak at a college. But, once a person is invited, a college should never yield to demands to withdraw an invitation. People can protest if they want. But honoring demands for disinvitation is incompatible with the mission of a great university.

Reminder that opinions you see on Twitter do not represent public opinion. This paper shows people only post on Twitter when their minds are strongly made up, but many people are more neutral. This makes Twitter “a bad place to look for opinion change at the individual level.”

Recently Published! "Black Protests in the United States, 1994 to 2010" dx.doi.org/10.15195/v9.a12

Yep, this hits its mark —> Meet The Agents Who Will Decline To Represent Your Debut Novel buff.ly/2P1HFSX

Meissner effect or bust: Day 8.5 We made the rocks

Funding the tax police has generated over $500,000,000 in revenue from just 900 scofflaw millionaires. Enforcing the law works! marketwatch.com/story/irs-has-…

Hugo Awards today posted the 2023 ballot for science fiction & fantasy works; RF Kuang’s Babel, Astounding nominee Xiran Jay Zhao, more deemed ineligible, no explanation; Chinese Communist Party censors suspected; consequence of holding Worldcon in Chengdu?file770.com/chengdu-worldc…

The time for excuses and leniency around social media is over. Girls are suffering enough. Now we're unleashing on them deepfake AI that allows anyone to impose their faces onto porn videos. Ban social media for minors. Or the next generation of girls don't stand a chance.

Land of the Blind is now available. “Owen's novel captures with unique vividness & authenticity the human realities of war in Afghanistan... conveyed in an irresistibly compelling story” John Gray “He has instantly become one of my favorite military writers” Brian Van Reet