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Decoding the AI Debate: A Philosophical Perspective
I had a great time speaking last night on a panel with Brendan McCord of the Cosmos Institute and Zoe Weinberg of ex/ante about venture capital, AI, and philosophy. I was really impressed with the group that convened. People were urgently excited to discuss philosophy of mind and language, technical progress in AI, the practical…
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Sociology of NGDP Targeting
What’s the right sociological explanation for the wonky transpartisan takes that have become identity- and community-forming memes online? YIMBYism was maybe the first of these. NGDP targeting seems to be a more recent one. Is the internet just so vast and politics so polarizing that there’s an online community for every imaginable policy position? Where…
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Towards a Theory of Decentralization
One force that drives centralization is comparative advantage. If I’m sufficiently good at making clothes, it might be mutually advantageous for me to focus on making clothes all day and to free up the person who’s good at making food to do that and the person who’s good at building homes to do that. And…
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Intimate Social Networks
Why haven’t big consumer businesses been built around the Find My Friends’ (FMF) location-sharing primitive? Lots of people my age share their location with as many as tens of people. The behavior has caught on despite no marketing or real productization from Apple. Location feels like a powerful piece of data, and the organic consumer…
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*Killers of the Flower Moon*
(spoilers below) There’s a criticism of some of Martin Scorcese’s movies that he makes the behavior he’s trying to condemn look cool. Scorcese’s Jordan Belfort may be insane scum, but he also oozes charisma. I think there’s a case to be made that Scorcese’s doing a Miltonian thing to show how evil is magnetic but…
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Matthew Mandel 