vishal

“Money is coined freedom”

[vishal @vsarda]

@jopriyu267 The best practitioners of political science, have never studied the subject formally. Calling it “science” is a backhanded way of legitimising it. It’s an art, that’s mostly learnt on the job.

[The Dalit Voice @ambedkariteIND]

This girl, Sunita Oraon, hails from the tribal community and is a former gold medalist in national volleyball. Today, she works as a sweeper at Ranchi Stadium.

Her salary is 10,000 rupees and she doesn't receive it for months.

As a nation, we have failed. Chief Minister Hemant Soren should give her a permanent and respectable job, or else resign from his post. 💔

[Buggy Human @SridharanAnand]

Under capitalism, people worry about food allergies.

Under socialism, about food.

[Eric S. Raymond @esrtweet]

Imagine it's the 1940s. You're a carpenter. Power tools are beginning to replace hand tools for ordinary work. Furthermore, jobs that would have been impossible or ruinously expensive are suddenly within reach.

You show up at a worksite one fine morning and it's being picketed. STOP POWER TOOLS! the signs say. WOODWORKING UNDER THREAT!

Puzzled, you accost one of the demonstrators and ask him why he has a signboard in his hand rather than tools.

"Power tools are a menace!" he says. "How are you going to train apprentices if they can't feel the wood through their hands?"

"What happens when we can chew through aged quality timber faster than we can grow new trees?"

"Carpentry isn't just a set of skills and habits, it's a mindset. It won't be any true carpenters left if we let this go on."

You inquire further and discover that they have plans. Plans to exclude from any job they work on any craftsman who has ever used a power tool or even spoken approvingly about them.

Meanwhile, inside the picket line, a house is going up. Men are working. Cutting and joining the framing is going faster than you could have imagined 10 years ago.

You look at the workers. You look at the demonstrators. One group is talking. The other is getting stuff done. One group looks like the past, the other like the future. In this moment, you get to decide which group you're going to join.

This post was not about carpentry.

[vishal @vsarda]

@KalpenParekh Minus 9% is scary 😟

[sam @samngibb]

Frontier labs are spending tens of billions of dollars on compute to produce models whose economic lives are getting shorter. I tried to look at the unit cost of compute to see where we are in the cycle - It's not as bad as I initially expected https://t.co/i6ftYu81TM

[vishal @vsarda]

@timeout_7 Without a doubt !!

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

Wake me up when AI can write like John Steinbeck to Marilyn Monroe 😂

[vishal @vsarda]

@SahilKapoor Prediction is extremely difficult, especially about the future. - Neils Bohr

[Veena @veenavenugopal]

Eternal absolutely got this one right

[Ashwini Damani @ashwinidamani]

@paulagnimitra1 @SuvenduWB : There is an urgent need of checking Vehicular Pollution from bus/taxi. Most local Buses and @Uber @Olacabs throw thick Black smoke while running. This is clearly visible and doesnt even need testing equipment. Its as if they use adulterated fuel

[vishal @vsarda]

@LuckyInvest_ARK Thanks

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

Last week I posted a new paper with Patrick Norrick: “Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World.”

We chose the title deliberately. No society in history has experienced the fertility levels now seen in South Korea, China, Thailand, Colombia, Chile, and many other countries. Our knowledge of the causes (and of the economic consequences) remains far more limited than most public discussion acknowledges. Much of what we write is, at best, educated conjecture.

The paper also struggles against a space limit. We wrote 20,000 words, far from the 250,000 or so we would need to address some issues in more detail (if I had the time and resources to hide away for a year, I could do that, but not now). That means some ideas are only sketched.

Nonetheless, we emphasize several important points.

First, fertility has fallen very fast everywhere: rich and poor countries, east and west, north and south, conservative and liberal societies, religious and non-religious societies (with the exception of the Jewish population of Israel; fertility has also collapsed among the Muslim population within the pre-1967 borders), you name it. Even in sub-Saharan Africa we see fast and unprecedented drops in fertility (alas, from a high initial level).

Second, and this is really interesting, the fertility collapse has been concentrated in poor and lower-middle-income countries much more than in rich countries. By now, income per capita and fertility are positively correlated within OECD countries. We conjecture this will hold globally in a few decades.

Third, and related to the second point, the fertility collapse has been concentrated among poor and lower-middle-income women within countries. In countries such as the U.S., the rich and highly educated now have more children than the poor and less educated.

Fourth, we document why we do not understand the data from the U.N. World Population Prospects. See, for example, Tables A.1 and A.2.

Fifth, we explain why some proposed mechanisms struggle when confronted with the data.

A more subtle point is at work here. Many commentators do not seem to understand the difference between proximate causes and ultimate causes. Yes, births might have gone down because fewer women are in long-run relationships. That is the proximate cause. But you need to explain why fewer women are in long-run relationships (the ultimate cause), and saying that they spend more years in school, to take one example, does not get us very far. Why do they spend more years in school? Once you start down the whole chain of reasoning, things become much harder than they seem.

The paper can be found here:

https://t.co/VrCHr0lBPa

Comments always welcome!

[vishal @vsarda]

@SahilKapoor I see you slipped Steven Storgatz in there. Smooth 🙂

[vishal @vsarda]

@ramkid Even more off putting is status signalling on cars - Army, Advocate, Govt Employee, Judge..I can understand Doctor on a car for emergencies but “Judge”? What’re you gonna do? Pronounce a judgement?

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I needed to move a sofa.

I mentioned this to an American. He said, "You know anybody with a truck?"

I did not know anybody with a truck.

He looked at me with real concern. Not pity. Concern. The way you look at a man who has told you he does not have a name.

"You gotta know somebody with a truck."

I asked how one acquires such a person.

He said, "You just do."

This is the third time I have received that answer in this country. It is the answer to everything here. You just do. There is no process. There is only the eventual fact of having.

He said, "Ask Kevin."

I do not know a Kevin. He said Kevin like I should. He said it the way you say a shared uncle.

I met Kevin four days later. Kevin owns a truck. Kevin does not own a truck for himself. Nobody owns a truck for themselves. Kevin owns a truck for a fifteen mile radius.

Inside I said: THIS MAN HAS TAKEN A VOW. HE DID NOT ANNOUNCE IT. HE SIMPLY PURCHASED A BED AND ACCEPTED THE CONSEQUENCES.

Kevin arrived on Saturday. He brought the truck. He also brought a second man.

I had not asked for a second man.

The second man's name is Tony. Tony came because Kevin came. Tony did not know me. Tony did not ask what we were moving. Tony brought gloves.

They moved the sofa in eleven minutes.

I offered them money. Both of them laughed at the same time, which felt rehearsed and was not.

I asked what I owed them.

Kevin said, "Buy the pizza."

That is the price. That is the entire economy. The truck costs one pizza and the pizza is not negotiable and the pizza is also not expensive and everyone knows what size.

Inside I said: THE FEE IS FIXED ACROSS THE ENTIRE NATION AND WAS SET BY NO ONE.

We ate on the floor because the sofa was against the wall and none of us wanted to be the first to sit on it.

Tony told me his daughter plays soccer. I asked if she is good. He said, "She's aggressive."

I still think about that.

Three weeks later, Kevin texted me.

"You free Sunday? Helping Tony move a fridge."

He did not ask if I wanted to. He informed me of a fridge.

Inside I said: I HAVE BEEN CALLED UP. I DID NOT ENLIST. THE PAPERS WERE FILED ON MY BEHALF.

I went. I moved the fridge. I have no truck. I contributed only arms.

Afterward, a man I had never met asked me if I knew anybody with a truck.

I said, "Yeah, I got a guy."

I have a guy.

I am somebody's guy now, too. Tony has told two people about me.

He describes me as "the guy who's strong for his size."

I have never been prouder of a sentence in my life.

[vishal @vsarda]

@SahilKapoor Attention

[Vaidehi Murthy @ButVai]

Salt and pepper hair only means that you've been seasoned by experience.

[Buggy Human @SridharanAnand]

@smitabarooah Everyone should live minimum two years without taking a single paisa from parents or anyone else before claiming to know how the world works & how to fix it