prior probability

One of my favorite Milton Friedman anecdotes is the following story in which Professor Friedman, while traveling somewhere overseas, reportedly spotted scores of road builders moving earth with basic shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why heavy tractors weren’t being used instead of mere shovels, his host told him that it was to keep the employment rate high: if the workers used tractors, fewer people would have jobs. “Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?”, Friedman inquired. But did this exchange really happen? See link below …

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

I joined the virtual #HotFrankSummer reading group last month and just finished reading Mary Shelley’s memorable novel Frankenstein today. (Our informal group read one chapter per day starting on May 15, a fateful day that I shall always remember, for it was the day of my father’s burial.) For me, the parallels between the Dr Victor Frankenstein’s monster and the Tyrell Corporation’s humanoid replicants in the original Blade Runner are haunting. Although the monster is described as “hideous” and “ugly”, while the Nexus-6 replicants are physically attractive, both are intelligent, emotional, and noble beings who rebel against their respective creators. I also wonder whether Sam Altman or anyone in his circle has taken the time to peruse Mary Shelley’s cautionary tale …

Wait, what are the “positive” aspects of royalty?

I dedicate this beautiful ballad to my loving wife Sydjia …

Today (Sunday, 9 June) is my third and final fun-filled day at this year’s Manifest Festival at the enchanting Lighthaven campus in beautiful Berkeley, California. In addition to a plethora of talks on various aspects of prediction markets (the main theme of the conference), I have also attended a wide variety of unorthodox but memorable events, including an informal “speed friending” activity led by Ricki Heicken, a hands-on workshop for YouTube creators led by Justin Kuiper, and an interactive session on “Why are you stuck on your novel?” led by Sy Etirabys. Moreover, I am happy to report that many of talks at “Manifest 2024” are being recorded and will be posted to Manifest’s website (see here) in about two weeks. In the meantime, I will be presenting my work on retrodiction markets later today.

That is the title of my most recent work-in-progress, which I dedicate to the memory of my father, Francisco Guerra, a veteran of Brigade 2506, Sixth Battalion. Below is an excerpt from the introduction to my paper:

I recently discovered that my late father, Francisco Guerra, was a veteran of the legendary “Brigada de Asalto 2506”, an idealistic group of mostly young men who fought to liberate their beloved Cuba in April 1961…. In this work, I wish to share a few more facts about this fateful moment in Cuban-American history — not only general information about the overall composition of the Brigade; but also some details specific to my father’s unit, the Sixth Battalion.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation

Note: Today (4 June 2024) marks the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The Jevons paradox refers to the unintended consequences that can result from technological progress: on the one hand, improvements or innovations in technology not only increase the efficiency with which a given resource is used, reducing the cost of any one use of that resource; but at the same time, those very improvements and innovations can also increase the overall demand for that resource, thus cancelling out or reversing the initial cost-savings and efficiency gains!

For an everyday example of this economic puzzle, look no further than Email, social media, etc. These things make it more easier than ever before to communicate with other people, thus increasing the overall level of one’s workload, since we now have to constantly check our emails and DMs to stay on top of things.

Bonus question: Does the Jevons paradox also explain the “enshittification” of the Internet more generally? See also: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/the-efficiency-dilemma and the tweet below: