1) FDB on the odd claim that Kanye West’s recent behaviour could not be caused by his mental illness: There’s a meme that’s arisen in the past few years, found prominently on social media: “mental illness doesn’t do that.” It’s a declaration that a given figure must not be given any special consideration, when weighing their behavior, due to their potential psychiatric disorders.
(Since I can't comment on the author's blog, I'm commenting here)
1/
> "Stocks tend to strongly outperform real estate as an asset class – 10% over the 20th century for stocks, vs barely beating inflation for real estate."
[citation needed] (The Rate of Return on Everything)[https://conference.nber.org/confer/2017/SI2017/EFGs17/Jorda_Knoll_Kuvshinov_Schularick_Taylor.pdf] has (globally) real return on equities ~7.1% and housing ~7.7% so housing *out performed* over a very long time horizon. In the UK (where I believe the author is from) the relationship is less good (~7.5% equities vs ~5.6% housing) but even so, we're still talking about assets with very similar return profiles. Risk adjusted, housing massively outperforms across all countries.
2/
> In contrast, if the value of my stocks doubles, then I can actually spend the money on things that make my life better, such as nicer rental properties, child care, etc
This whole paragraph seems to miss the point about housing costs. If you buy a house, you have roughly speaking covered the shelter short you are born with. If you own stocks and rent, you are exposing yourself to some large basis risk between shelter and equity returns. Maybe this is a good bet, but it's not an obvious one to me
3/
> However, I have no reason to sell my stocks just because I want to move house.
Based on the authors own logic, you have no reason to sell your house just because you want to move house. You can rent out your house and rent your new house.
4/
> Secondly, the downside of leverage is that it leaves you massively screwed if your house falls in value.
One of the biggest advantages of mortgages (vs other kinds of leverage) is they are not margined. If the value of your house falls you *aren't* massively screwed. Yes, you might end up in negative equity, but as long as you continue to be able to afford your mortgage payments, no-one is forcing you to sell it
Just searched for “boiling point“ on Netflix, without success. Maybe not available in the US?
I can only assume it is a docudrama about the time that https://nitter.net/qualythe tried to go undercover as a line cook, in Las Vegas, in a heat wave.
Great read and I’ve been a long time reader of Jonathan Glover’s (your grandfather’s) work. One of the first books of his that I read was “The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identities”. His crystal clear articulation of the human condition is always a joy to read.
3) looks like it could be a fascinating example of (diaspora) Chinese nationalism. I am much more likely to trust expert assessors than Chinese expats with deep pockets, so it seems clear that the vase was actually 20th century, but the *idea* of the vase is a different thing - being able to own a piece of Chinese history is (for a number of reasons) almost impossible for private Chinese citizens, but nationalism makes them want to do it, so they invent it.
Agreed on 12), but tbqh I think the main reason there's not been much discussion is that it makes MacAskill/SBF look bad. It has caused me to update *very* heavily in the direction of 'FTX is just slinging money around any which way in the hope that at least one thing pays off big-time', which (a) seems like a bad strategy, (b) is at odds with EA's cultivated self-image and could potentially cause harm to its reputation, and (c) is something that the Future Fund people have tried to deny themselves (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hDK9CZJwH2Cqc9n9J/some-clarifications-on-the-future-fund-s-approach-to). There's just no good EA-esque argument for 'helping Musk buy Twitter would be robustly good in expectation', *unless* SBF is just going all-in on 'YOLO #sendit' and essentially ignoring downside risk while obsessing over upside risk - which is both object-level bad and, because it's something his people have denied that he's doing, pretty dishonest.
On 15), the PhilPapers survey (https://dailynous.com/2021/11/01/what-philosophers-believe-results-from-the-2020-philpapers-survey/) is something like this for philosophers - it's not quite the same since it's one big survey done every few years rather than a continually-updated set of questions, but that makes sense for philosophy because it's a discipline with quite a lot of 'perennial questions'.
On 12, I still don't really get why more normal EAs haven't been talking about it. Like EAs generally seem pretty willing to criticise big EA names and institutions, so what's the explanation for why there hasn't been, say, a discussion on the EA Forum about this? Have I overestimated willingness of EAs to say something that people think might hurt the movement (and if so, is that out of self-interest or a genuine belief that sharing this is harmful)? Is it being censored from the EA forum (doubtful to me but I guess I can't be certain)? It's alarming to me that I heard about this through Torres' twitter.
Re: 33/ (Don't by a house)
(Since I can't comment on the author's blog, I'm commenting here)
1/
> "Stocks tend to strongly outperform real estate as an asset class – 10% over the 20th century for stocks, vs barely beating inflation for real estate."
[citation needed] (The Rate of Return on Everything)[https://conference.nber.org/confer/2017/SI2017/EFGs17/Jorda_Knoll_Kuvshinov_Schularick_Taylor.pdf] has (globally) real return on equities ~7.1% and housing ~7.7% so housing *out performed* over a very long time horizon. In the UK (where I believe the author is from) the relationship is less good (~7.5% equities vs ~5.6% housing) but even so, we're still talking about assets with very similar return profiles. Risk adjusted, housing massively outperforms across all countries.
2/
> In contrast, if the value of my stocks doubles, then I can actually spend the money on things that make my life better, such as nicer rental properties, child care, etc
This whole paragraph seems to miss the point about housing costs. If you buy a house, you have roughly speaking covered the shelter short you are born with. If you own stocks and rent, you are exposing yourself to some large basis risk between shelter and equity returns. Maybe this is a good bet, but it's not an obvious one to me
3/
> However, I have no reason to sell my stocks just because I want to move house.
Based on the authors own logic, you have no reason to sell your house just because you want to move house. You can rent out your house and rent your new house.
4/
> Secondly, the downside of leverage is that it leaves you massively screwed if your house falls in value.
One of the biggest advantages of mortgages (vs other kinds of leverage) is they are not margined. If the value of your house falls you *aren't* massively screwed. Yes, you might end up in negative equity, but as long as you continue to be able to afford your mortgage payments, no-one is forcing you to sell it
Very interesting - thanks
Just searched for “boiling point“ on Netflix, without success. Maybe not available in the US?
I can only assume it is a docudrama about the time that https://nitter.net/qualythe tried to go undercover as a line cook, in Las Vegas, in a heat wave.
Lol! I guess you could get it on UK Netflix with a VPN? Worth your time!
Great read and I’ve been a long time reader of Jonathan Glover’s (your grandfather’s) work. One of the first books of his that I read was “The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identities”. His crystal clear articulation of the human condition is always a joy to read.
Thank you for the mention!
3) looks like it could be a fascinating example of (diaspora) Chinese nationalism. I am much more likely to trust expert assessors than Chinese expats with deep pockets, so it seems clear that the vase was actually 20th century, but the *idea* of the vase is a different thing - being able to own a piece of Chinese history is (for a number of reasons) almost impossible for private Chinese citizens, but nationalism makes them want to do it, so they invent it.
Agreed on 12), but tbqh I think the main reason there's not been much discussion is that it makes MacAskill/SBF look bad. It has caused me to update *very* heavily in the direction of 'FTX is just slinging money around any which way in the hope that at least one thing pays off big-time', which (a) seems like a bad strategy, (b) is at odds with EA's cultivated self-image and could potentially cause harm to its reputation, and (c) is something that the Future Fund people have tried to deny themselves (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hDK9CZJwH2Cqc9n9J/some-clarifications-on-the-future-fund-s-approach-to). There's just no good EA-esque argument for 'helping Musk buy Twitter would be robustly good in expectation', *unless* SBF is just going all-in on 'YOLO #sendit' and essentially ignoring downside risk while obsessing over upside risk - which is both object-level bad and, because it's something his people have denied that he's doing, pretty dishonest.
On 15), the PhilPapers survey (https://dailynous.com/2021/11/01/what-philosophers-believe-results-from-the-2020-philpapers-survey/) is something like this for philosophers - it's not quite the same since it's one big survey done every few years rather than a continually-updated set of questions, but that makes sense for philosophy because it's a discipline with quite a lot of 'perennial questions'.
On 12, I still don't really get why more normal EAs haven't been talking about it. Like EAs generally seem pretty willing to criticise big EA names and institutions, so what's the explanation for why there hasn't been, say, a discussion on the EA Forum about this? Have I overestimated willingness of EAs to say something that people think might hurt the movement (and if so, is that out of self-interest or a genuine belief that sharing this is harmful)? Is it being censored from the EA forum (doubtful to me but I guess I can't be certain)? It's alarming to me that I heard about this through Torres' twitter.
I suppose the thing to do is write a brief forum post and see how it goes?