HWFO Reading List, February 2024

And a talk about being afraid of an idea

Some of HWFO’s published material is pretty spicy, but there are some things I’ve written which are simply too spicy to share. I had an idea this past weekend, got the article half written, and then tabled it and I’m not sure I’m going to go back. The idea went like this.

The foundation of SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence) was a thing called the Drake Equation, which is a way to estimate how many stars within radio contact range might have had intelligent life on them that we could hear. You take a very large number, multiply it by one fraction after another (ratio of stars that have planets, ratio of planets in the habitable zone, ratio of intelligent species who avoid nuclear war, and so forth) and by the time you’re done you have an estimate at how much life might be nearby enough to pick up on Arecibo before it broke. Then you use that estimate to beg for SETI funding.

Here’s the spicy thing. You could do the same procedure with the chance that someone shoots Trump.

The ratio of people who “would kill baby Hitler if they had a time machine” is known, you can back-calculate the number of people who think Trump is “literally Hitler,” then estimate how many of them have guns, what ratio of those guns are rifles, what ratio are competent shooters, and such, and get an estimate of the chance that someone plugs him. It would have been a good article I think.

Then one of my readers mentioned I should get a lawyer if I published it, because some AG somewhere could claim that calculating the odds amounted to inciting, if someone actually did shoot him, so I shelved the whole thing.

If, however, you’d like to see it’s half baked current form and talk to the other loonies in the HWFO Slack channel, subscribe and I’ll give you the keys to the door.

Reading List

If you’re near Reno Nevada go check out Grassroots Books, owned and operated by a HWFO reader. Ask for Zoe.

Another HWFO reader, with whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet personally, got a chance to perform on Penn and Teller’s current show. Here he is.

James Hankins of Harvard University wrote an actual anti-diversity screed as his diversity statement. From this I think we can draw three conclusions. (1) that James Damore was at least in part run out on a rail because he wasn’t a Harvard professor, that (2) the woke wave has either broken or is breaking, and (3) that James Hankins was probably going to retire soon anyway.

CNN published an interesting read about the Georgia Guidestones, which were blown up a year or two ago probably by religious fanatics.

Kareem at OSD pointed me to this study, which indicates that adjustments in car seat laws actually negatively impact overall fertility rate.

Researchers identified the brain structure that allows us to perceive ourselves as ourselves and distinct from the environment.

This twitter feed is a fascinating look at how the media machine can warp and is warping our collective memories. Alicia Keys hit a sour note in the half time performance, which was corrected in the tape, and then all evidence of the actual sour note was systematically scrubbed from Youtube and other platforms.

This study in BMJ identifies that experts on Twitter were more likely even than journalists to issue incorrect statements about monkeypox, which may have some implications to how the world reacted to Covid.

Generational impacts of glyphosate (Roundup) seem to be related to obesity.

STUDY ANALYSIS: Glyphosate is a transgenerational obesogen

While we’re at it, this study indicates MSG in food might be at least partially responsible for the male testosterone apocalypse.

Oh and also seed oils release aldehydes similar to cigarette byproducts when used for frying food, so that’s lovely.

This article by Scott should assuage some of the fears over AGI, because there simply isn’t nor could there be enough compute to train a model that well:

Sam Altman Wants $7 Trillion

This is an interesting article that challenges current prepper ideology, or reaffirms older ideology, that the time to act won’t be when the zombies are at your gate, but rather when acting itself is considered treason.

The Problem with Prepping

Also on the topic of prepping, this article explains how to steal electricity from high voltage power lines by modifying an existing fence that goes underneath them.

This is a great twitter thread full of graphs about grade school educational attainment. For example:

High school is basically a dead zone of math learning for all but the top quarter of students, and some student groups actually regress. The lowest performing students end up regressing back to 5th grade by the end of High School.

As we say on HWFO Slack, “Divide By Epoch Times,” but they’re one of the few publications brave enough to carry antinarrative Covid-19 material. Here they cover a recent study that estimates the vaccine killed more people than it saved. I have not yet vetted that study so have no opinion on it.

This was an interesting take on Biden’s mental health and its implications:

A Simple Moment of Weakness

I’m sympathetic that this could be the indicator that we see a national divorce, civil war, and such, but I was also anticipating such a thing in 2019 and it somehow didn’t happen in 2020, so I’m bearish on future civil wars. It’s going to take a lot more than an incompetent president to provoke one. I personally think the read on the situation in the presidency is very simple. Biden’s handlers are in charge, they’re going to pick a new VP for him, use Biden as a lead blocker through the convention, and then swap the new pick into the presidency either before or after the election. It’s just a theory, but it fits all the facts.

For a $5 donation, this charity will name a rat after one of your exes and feed it to a raptor. Possibly useful after Valentine’s Day.