Links to Consider, 6/22
Scott Alexander on the p factor; The Zvi on Apple Vision Pro plus AI; Chris Pope on Why Congress?; Kevin Erdmann on inflation
Note: On Monday, June 26th, at 8 PM NY time, for paid subscribers we will have a Zoom meeting featuring Philip Wallach discussing his latest book on making Congress function.
Recent research has suggested a similar “general factor of psychopathology”. All mental illnesses are correlated; people with depression also tend to have more anxiety, psychosis, attention problems, etc. As with intelligence, the statistical structure doesn’t look like a bunch of pairwise correlations, it looks like a single underlying cause.
He gives a terrific intuitive explanation of a paper that is sort of a “theory of everything” for psychopathology.
If I had to guess the killer app here, it is one Apple didn’t mention. AI.
Think of the feedback you can get, all without social pressure. There’s even expert tracking of your eyes. And every step of the way, you can get guidance, run experiments, have multiple tries, you name it.
Maybe when you include AI, the real game changer isn’t what you can see with the headset. It is what the headset can see about you.
Congressional institutions are unable to generate incremental and pragmatic dealmaking so long as the chambers are dominated by unified parties engaged in zero-sum combat. To escape from this impasse, Wallach hopes for the reemergence of a bloc of moderate legislators, which, he suggests, might enable more fluid coalition-building.
He is reviewing Why Congress? by Philip A. Wallach, who suggests ways to restore Congress’ ability to produce meaningful legislation via compromise.
My feelings about Congressional bipartisanship are quite mixed. The wheels of legislative compromise are greased by spending. Whenever a bipartisan bill is passed, such as the recent legislation to raise the debt ceiling, I assume without studying the bill that the only provisions that will actually prove binding are those that cause spending to go up.
all items excluding shelter and core CPI less shelter, prices have been gliding along at something approximating 2% for 11 months now.
I wouldn’t spike the ball just yet. Wages, as measured by average hourly earnings, are up more than 4 percent from a year ago. Unless we are getting good productivity growth (and the data suggest the contrary), prices over the next year are likely to rise faster than the Fed’s 2 percent target.
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Why I think the P factor is real and also why I am not so fond of it.
If you listen to Joseph Henrich he talks about intelligence being made up of a massive number of genes. And there is always the interplay with the environment that contributes greatly as well. Even the womb is an environmental factor. Similarly for the P factor and various personality disorders and mental illnesses it is likely a massive number of genes truly affecting things with environmental inputs still being significant. With the C factor Arnold mentioned previously one could likely spend decades researching and still end up finding the biggest contributors to the C factor being intelligence and impulsivity. This whole area comes across to me as similar to the study of defining cognition itself, which Robin Hanson described as an incredible sink of one's time because there are so many theories and rabbit holes that just consume endless research and thought time without going anywhere.
Also, when it comes to genes that continue to survive they are usually doing something beneficial while imposing costs in other areas with a constant fight between the tradeoffs and interplay with other genes. Like some number of genes that can have some contribution to homosexuality also having links to increased frequency and sexual partners in heterosexuals. Another example, there is no psychopath gene, but there is a gene linked to psychopathy that is also present in Chimpanzees and these Chimpanzees are more violent. This gene survived the Wrangham described self domestication down to humans in the present.
When it comes to schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder I suspect there are genes that contribute to greater creativity and intelligence that also contribute to these disorders. The genes continue to survive through a high risk/high reward strategy, which is why they are present, but not normative. I say all this coming from a place where I have a bi-polar sister, an inner life nearly as rich as Arnold's, and two sub-scales of my IQ that are 30 points higher than two other sub-scales of my IQ. Whatever genetic lottery winnings I have there is a good chance of them being the genetic lottery losses of my sibling. The view from where I sit with regard to Arnold's intelligence level, success, and creativity in life is linked with the bi-polar disorder you have disclosed. Maybe I am just telling myself stories, but I see exceptional tails of both ends of the distribution confounding any p and c factor story. The Scott Alexander piece is a good marginal step, but the end where he talks about a general factor for physical disease as well really hits with my overall story/view of things.
The only thing both wings of congress can agree upon is the military industrial complex, and little else.
What I want to see most from government is school choice and bigger child tax breaks.
Obviously one party won't endorse school choice under any circumstances, it's like a core value.
For child tax credits the block seems to be that Democrats only want them to go to poor people who don't have jobs, while Republicans want them to be broader based and have work requirements. I don't really value the Democratic version (dysgenic, probably excludes me). Also kids don't vote so it's hard to prioritize that use of funds versus like Medicare or Ukraine or something.
Basically, if I want any of what I want to pass, my only path is Republican supermajorities to win elections.