Oct
6
2025

Cheap Laffs @ X

I'm not proud, but I went for it anyway, with the assistance of straight-man/statemate Jeremy Kauffman:

But the WSJ reminds us that "pain" is coming Real Soon Now: Parties Dig In, Await Pain From Shutdown. (WSJ gifted link)

That's the dead-trees headline; the online version is less threatening. Nevertheless, in the text:

The shutdown will likely cause pain, but the early days don’t bring enough acute anguish to make anyone budge.

Do I detect impatience that we're not seeing acute anguish early enough?

Also of note:

  • Blast from the past. It doesn't seem that long ago, but Phil Magness recollects his part in Covid dissent: Great Barrington, 5 Years On.

    October 4, 2020, was the date of the Great Barrington Declaration, a statement by medical professionals that presented the first formal argument against the COVID-19 lockdowns to gain a widespread scientific following. As we look back on this event, many of the principles articulated in the GBD are recognized as having been vindicated. We now know lockdowns did little, if anything, to stop the spread of the virus. They represented a sharp deviation from the pre-COVID scientific literature on pandemic mitigation, yet they achieved widespread adoption around the world with almost no scientific debate as to their merits. Despite their lack of efficacy, these policies imposed enormous social and economic harms, many of which still plague us today.

    Back in October 2020 I commended on the GBD here, here, here, here, here, and here.

    That second link notes the quick removal of the GBD from Reddit Covid discussion fora by censors "moderators". And that was just one small example of the anti-GBD effort, encouraged by influential figures in and out of government.

    Ironically, many of the folks griping (often correctly) about the current censoriousness of the Trump administration were silent about this sort of thing back then.

  • Worst screenplay ever. The WSJ editorialists warn of the Invasion of the Killer Ikea Sofas. (WSJ gifted link)

    Who knew that Ikea sofas were a national security threat? That’s what President Trump claimed as he unleashed another tariff barrage. Consider this a pre-emptive strike against a possible Supreme Court decision that nixes his worldwide “emergency” tariffs.

    The President on Monday announced 10% tariffs on lumber as well as 25% on upholstered wooden furniture, bathroom vanities and kitchen cabinets. This follows last week’s announcement of tariffs on heavy-duty trucks (25%). All of these tariffs are being imposed under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act to—get this—protect national security.

    They point out that SCOTUS may soon rule against Trump-tariffs imposed under the "it's an EMERGENCY" excuse. It's reminiscent of Biden's effort to forgive student loans using different excuses.

  • It's common knowledge. Ann Althouse links to a London Times interview with Pun Salad fave Steven Pinker.

    It’s a busy time for the world’s most famous defender of Enlightenment liberalism. The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, a co-founder of his university’s Council on Academic Freedom, has spent much of the past decade fighting threats to academic free speech from cancel culture and the “woke” left.

    Now, American universities find themselves challenged by the Trump administration’s campaign to defund research. “I’m kind of pinned between those two trends,” Pinker tells me when we meet in central London. Which poses the greater threat? There’s no question. “Trump has an army … whereas the Department of Romance Languages — there’s only so much damage they can do.”

    I'm in the middle of his latest book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…. Despite the catchy title, it's more in the vein of science-reporting on a (to me) obscure concept of cognitive science. Not to worry, though: Pinker can make even that seem interesting.

  • We're living in Arthur C. Clarke's world. Specifically, the world envisioned in his Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Noah Smith has a long and interesting essay on The Third Magic. After a stunning example of AI creativity:

    Anyway, this is thrilling, but at the same time it’s slightly worrying as well. This technology is so powerful that we’re going to have no choice but to rely on it for much of our daily lives. Even Terence Tao, generally regarded as the world’s smartest man, has said that he now asks AI models to do some small pieces of his research. Every scientist must now be, to some degree, a spellcaster.

    But — assuming we don’t make a huge breakthrough in interpreting the models — this power will come at a great cost. Technology will be more powerful, but less reliable — it’ll be like the holodeck computer in Star Trek: The Next Generation, whose responses to the crew’s prompts are often so disastrous that they become the plotlines of whole episodes.

    On top of that, I worry that humanity will become infantilized by this new magic we’ve created. The Industrial Age was an age of rationality for good reason — if people wanted to understand the marvels that were transforming their lives, they only had to take the machines apart and look at the mechanisms. Everything in the world seemed mechanistic and comprehensible.

    I suggest you peruse Noah's content in its entirety. As a bonus, he includes ChatGPT's criticism of his article, and that's worth reading too.

  • And there are also the old-fashioned concerns. Never mind being "infantilized", Noah. How about AI being used to kill us all? Slashdot wonders: What's the Best Way to Stop AI From Designing Hazardous Proteins?

    Currently DNA synthesis companies "deploy biosecurity software designed to guard against nefarious activity," reports the Washington Post, "by flagging proteins of concern — for example, known toxins or components of pathogens." But Microsoft researchers discovered "up to 100 percent" of AI-generated ricin-like proteins evaded detection — and worked with a group of leading industry scientists and biosecurity experts to design a patch. Microsoft's chief science officer called it "a Windows update model for the planet.

    Just in case you needed one more thing to worry about! Note that my Artificial Photosynthesis proposal ("A Crackpot Idea That Will Save, Or Destroy, Humanity") involved possibly enlisting AI in designing enzymes to supercharge carbon-capturing infrastructure. Easily solving global warming!

    What could go wrong there?

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