In the same way that farts only smell bad when someone else has done them.

A case of mistaken identity, I fear. Count Binface has a bin on his face, not a face on his bin. This is the family of Count Facebin.

A greatly expanded version of this thread, with interactive charts, and links to all sources/references is here: buff.ly/YvWBJlK

Spotting the opportunity to make the argument that if you are willing to pay that much for the worst AI company, surely you will pay just as much for the best one?

IMHO possibly the most interesting question in finance and economics right now is the extent to which future AI dominance can retain any monopoly characteristics. People assume because it's "Silicon Valley" that those explosive network effects will necessarily pertain. They really might not... 1/

Without claiming any expertise in the problem in question, I think it's notable that OpenAI says that it was solved by "a new general-purpose reasoning model" i.e. not by an LLM. This makes sense as I do not think LLMs are even in principle able to solve novel problems.

I have watched this maybe 8 times today

Now do this for AI.

I have been thinking about this point a lot over the past couple of days. Leadership is hard and you may need to compromise on some issues for the sake of the bigger picture. But having the judgement to know when you have triangulated yourself into unacceptable positions seems important.

I will never understand how Keir reconciles his self-conception as a good man doing a good job as prime minister with “my premiership had to be brought to the brink of death for me to say this”.

Dear Prime Minister, I am great and therefore should remain in my job. However, I no longer think you are great and therefore I cannot. Yours sincerely, Wes

Love isn't always on time. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Terrific and wholly correct thread.

Social care reform, immediately. Bon the commission, give task force 3 months to propose final recommendations building from Dilnot proposals, implement immediately with penny on basic and higher rates of income tax to pay for it. Immediately transforms local govt fortunes too…

The defence of the FPTP political system has always been, in effect, that it is unstable. An increase in vote share can have a non-linear effect on the share of seats, so a swing to one party can quickly snowball into a large majority. This is apparently good because it leads to strong government.

Power works best when it's not exercised. In the abstract, we equate "the strongest army in the world" with absolute power and act accordingly. When put into practice, the limits of that power become clear and it seems somewhat less impressive.

I can't remember whether @dsquareddigest.bsky.social covered this exact angle in his book, but there's a kind of accountability sink that's created in law by the government to protect people and organisations from the consequences of their actions, in order to encourage risk-taking and innovation.

Headline measures of wealth inequality haven't meaningfully changed since the 1980s, but it's harder to work and save your way up the ladder than it used to be. Meanwhile, inheritances are becoming ever more important. Me for this weekend's Observer: observer.co.uk/news/capital...

This is confusing symptom with cause. Labour is repeating the mistakes of the Conservatives in trying to win voters from the far right by chasing anti-immigration headlines. That's only serving as promotional material for Reform and is (part of) the reason the leaderships is under question.

This works on multiple levels, because even the bit that RFK presumably thinks is right is actually wrong. $100 rising to $600 is a 500% increase. Just great Content all round.

This is a very insightful comment about how we shape our careers. It seems obvious to me that you'd want to have a career that sees you do the things you are good at and avoid the things you are bad at. But maybe this is why I will never be PM (or e.g. CEO of a large company).

I muse on what it is about Palantir's business model that triggers my spidey sense ... backofmind.substack.com/p/brain-dono...

I get why people compare worries about kids on social media with previous moral panics but I think an important difference is that when previous generations worried about computer games or rock music they were worrying about things kids did that their parents didn't understand.

Not the most important point right now I know, but you can see the US track record on regime change as an example of a widely applicable rule in managing complex systems. It's easy for someone with power to destablise the system. The US military can kill the leaders of smaller countries.

I was accused of having a terrible blog name, a crappy avatar, and of not making any jokes. And that was just by @t0nyyates.bsky.social. Thank god I'm now on Bluesky and entirely safe from any such treatment.

A man can rape an underage girl and walk around free, but god forbid he misuse a small amount of public money.

This is absolutely true for any complex system, whether that's a large organisation, a state or the world. It is impossible for someone at the top to intervene and make it all work well - there's just way too much complexity - but it's a hell of a lot easier for them to personally mess things up.

I expand a little on a term of cybernetic interest backofmind.substack.com/p/how-to-mak...

It goes further - imagine a by-election contest between a working plumber from Manchester and a professor from Kent? The media lines write themselves, except that the party allegiances are not how our commentariat would like them to be.

Where do parents find the time to parent? Less sleep, work and screens. Amazing chart feat. in @alphaville.ft.com Further Reading. homeeconomics.substack.com/p/where-do-p...

Thread 🧵 re Westminster politics & the lack of independent revenue-raising powers for #Localgov. The result? *Everything* has to go through Whitehall for something to happen. All policy initiative is locked up in London. (Note #LibDems proposal to revamp HMT with rebrand & move to Birmingham)

Immigration has not become significantly better or worse for the country over this period of time, so what we have is a volatile indicator that bears little relationship to underlying factors that can be targeted by policy.

Just plotted the "difference" lines from this table to show how big the swings are over time. Wild. public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...

"I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of piss."

As I've said before the lack of focus on A&E in govt plans is bewildering even just from a political perspective. For many people it's their most viseral and memorable interaction with the state.

The US approach to geopolitics mirrors the libertarian oligarch's approach to government and regulation: those who benefit most from the current system want to tear it down because they believe it's holding them back from even greater wealth that their intrinsic superiority would otherwise deliver.

Possible my memory is failing me, but I feel like it's a while since I saw one of these charts shaped like this, because it's a while since we meaningfully increased benefits - which is the only way to support the lowest income groups, who pay very little in tax, so don't benefit from tax cuts.

This SUNDAY - COLCHESTER!! A solo show for @samaritans.bsky.social Tickets here www.redlionbooks.co.uk/product/poet... Tell your friends

For 90% of people there is no good reason these days to own a high value phone when a second hand one from several years ago can do everything you need it to and more. The added bonus appears to be that would-be muggers won't want to take it from you.

[the sound of a million people searching for HotDogGuy.jpg]

New post just out: "On the edge" On my unexpected week in hospital and five things I learnt about the state of the NHS. (Free to read) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/o...

It's almost like... this is the point of a narrow tax base and heavily means-tested benefits.

It's been a rough two decades for non-pensioner real income growth after housing costs, especially for the poorest households. www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

You do, but most analysis suggests this is massively outweighed by cost increases from technology. Some helpful discussion from @policysketch.bsky.social here policysketchbook.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/p...

The obvious conclusion from this article is "don't use age verification yet unless you absolutely have to". It's in its chaotic infancy and will probably be much safer at some point in the future. www.pcgamer.com/hardware/the...

Dazed and confused? Policy ideas behind the NHS 10 year plan www.health.org.uk/reports-and-...

Policy exchange, backed by Sajid Javid, think we need to switch the NHS funding model to social insurance, and introduce new charges for NHS services, like to see a GP policyexchange.org.uk/publication/... These are not new ideas, but they are bad ideas A thread with some evidence

Have to wonder how much of an issue is that we hold the chief accountant responsible for economic growth. Accountancy and growth are really not the same thing!