Posts tagged Noahpinion

The efficiency of Taiwan and Korea’s responses vs. the U.S., Japan, China and Iran suggest that democracies and autocracies both suffer from distinct failure modes in the face of external shocks, and that the best government is a democracy with competent technocratic leadership.

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) March 8, 2020

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1236699990765924352)

I was never really afraid for America’s future until I saw how the CDC responded to coronavirus.

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) March 7, 2020

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1236115622544551936)

If you haven’t read this paper, you should. It shows how a key technology (solar panels) develops first through R&D and later through scaling effects.

It implies that the way to foster a new technology is first to subsidize R&D, then later to subsidize deployment. https://t.co/jcuZQ071TS

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) December 30, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1211541323330637829)

An efficient way to find out about a scientific literature: Toss out a half-formed idea on Twitter, wait for angry academics to tell that there’s a big literature on that topic, ask them for links, block the ones who are too angry to give you links, and follow the ones who do

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) December 14, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1205924350676783109)

While Americans agonize over how to purge the last vestiges of discrimination from algorithms, China has a “massive cybernetic brain” that directs the police to investigate and detain whole categories of people. https://t.co/DMCDVC22of

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) November 26, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1199394214024339456)

If the system is so gridlocked that nothing can ever get done, why *not* take silly extremist positions online?

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) November 21, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1197615977598291969)

Interesting exercise:

1. Write down the question “Whose side are you on?”

2. Write down one answer only.

3. Don’t tell anyone your answer, but think about it.

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) November 11, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1193916828218576896)

Unpopular opinion: Trying to “understand” art necessarily impoverishes it. Understanding is just modeling, i.e. simplifying something for the sake of tractability. When we simplify our perception of art in order to “understand” it, we lose a lot.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) January 7, 2019

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1082385443096674304)

Jewish culture taught me to love arguing.

Texan culture taught me that all arguments are pointless.

And Japanese culture taught me to appreciate pointlessness.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) December 29, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1079135452785893376)

The rise of clean energy is dramatic proof that the choice between political/social activism and science/engineering/innovation as vectors for improvement of the human condition is a false one.

Society needs both, and they complement each other.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) July 13, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1017856234022584320)

But the environmental movement also probably played a big role in pushing huge numbers of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs into the fight to create cheap clean energy.

Without that idealism, they’d be wasting their talents on high-frequency trading or something.

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) July 13, 2018

(via http://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1017855801786957824)