Previous predictions/calibrations: 2017: Predictions - Calibration 2016: Predictions - Calibration Please note that my "Blackpill Timeline" is a what-if scenario, not a prediction. While percentages for existing predictions will remain fixed, I reserve the right to add more predictions during the next couple of days. Oil prices (WTI Crude) are higher than $70: 50% BTC... Read More
In the spirit of #SkinInTheGame, Taleb’s idea that pundits should at least stake their reputations on the strength of their knowledge, last year I made some predictions about 2017. See also predictions and results for 2016. As usual, I am calibrating my predictions by comparing the percentage of predictions I got right at each probability... Read More
Ritchie, Stuart - 2017 - Review of The Rationality Quotient by Stanovich et al. From Stuart Ritchie's review of "The Rationality Quotient" by Keith Stanovich et al.: That's the extent to which actual IQ tests typically load on the g factor and each other. One might even go so far as to propose that rationality... Read More
Last year, I resumed my New Year's tradition of posting annual predictions. I recently analyzed the success rate of those predictions for 2016, the year when meme magic became real. Here are my predictions for 2017: No major conflict (>50 deaths) in East Asia/SE Asia that involves China and/or the US: 95%. US will not... Read More
In the spirit of #SkinInTheGame, Taleb's idea that pundits should at least stake their reputations on the strength of their knowledge, last year I made some predictions about what has come to be known as The Current Year. Like Scott Alexander, I am calibrating my predictions by comparing the percentage of predictions I got right... Read More
It's just a bit ironic that the figurehead of a movement (best known to the general public as the author of the world's most popular Harry Potter fanfic) that emphasizes "politics is the mindkiller" has lapsed into all-out Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome and fake news generation. Not entirely unexpected, though - Arthur Chu, an SJW activist... Read More
This month the SF Bay Area based rationality organization LessWrong has released the latest survey of its members, or rather of its "diaspora," since the site itself has gone mostly dormant with many of their members now congregating at Scott Alexander's blog and Yudkowsky's various offshoots). Although some critics disparage Less Wrong as a clique... Read More
Last month there was an interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky, the rationalist philosopher and successful Harry Potter fanfic writer who heads the world's foremost research outfit dedicated to figuring out ways in which a future runaway computer superintelligence could be made to refrain from murdering us all. It's really pretty interestingl. It contains a nice explication... Read More
I like predictions. Part of that is related to my passion for quantifying everything, but another is philosophical, and borne of my antipathy towards charlatanism (I am extremely sympathetic to N.N. Taleb on this issue). In 2005, U.C. Berkeley psychologist Philip Tetlock published a study on expert fallibility spanning 18 years, 284 experts and 82,361... Read More
Effective altruism (EA) is the fairly simple idea that in charitable giving as in financial investment, you should aim to put your money where it would do the most good - be it earning the highest returns, or helping the maximum number of people. It is a laudable enough goal, though the ideas behind it... Read More
I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.
One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.
Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.
If you like the words I write, and want to see more of them, here’s a way you can make that happen: http://akarlin.com/donations/
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Blogroll
This is not so much meant to be comprehensive as to illustrate the themes and individual thinkers whom I follow and am inspired by.
I do not bother including any MSM outlets, since I’m sure they can do just fine without my publicity.
Blogs which I consider to be particularly good and/or prominent are highlighted in bold, and blogs that appear to have gone dormant appear at the end in italics. While I try to keep these things objective, if you include me in your blogroll that does vastly increase the chances that I’ll reciprocate.
So yes, he made reference to retaliation, but on the other hand he focussed attention on passive defence, with “retaliation” limited to shooting down missiles. That’s how the US regime wants it, because it’s a no-win situation for Russia.
That’s why I suggested they need to make the ...
Calm down. If Russia do some revenge operation in East Europe; this will happen in Donbas and it will be done on the cheap way. Something like Smerching to the Stone age Ukr forces there.
Relax; the Russians are not coming (to Poland).
Lack of self awareness from Russian imperialists is becoming hilarious at this point - Putin himself was showing animations of nuclear strike on US territory just several weeks ago and now they are trying to present themselves as being very hurt that many people in the West don't like them at all...
"The Jew tells you that he was beaten, but doesn't tell you why."
Unfortunately gentiles don't seem to be immune to this kind of psychopathic sentiment. Little kids are like that. "He hurt me!" "But you hurt him first." "He hurt me! He shouldn't have hurt me!" "But you hurt him first. He only ...
The world is bigger than the US, chickie. Get lost and live out the rest of your days in homosexuality and shrew paradise land. No wonder your men aren't making babies with you.
Is there a strange reason why you feel the desire to troll a Russian blog: this is a country which is far more “based” by Alt-Right standards, and where feminism has made such inroads that the expectations that pretty secretaries are servicing their bosses is usually true. You have to be some...
NATO wars start when the other side chooses to shoot back.
Funnily enough there's another country that adopts the same attitude - we are entitled to attack whenever we want and if you retaliate it's an outrageous act of aggression that will entitle us to do whatever we want in response:
Isra...
How does it feel to be wrong?
You're about ready to find out.
Manosphere types say women act like children. The ironies never cease.
This is a bizarre contention peculiar to American society. It does not exist elsewhere, nor do American girls even behave the way weirdo age gap police co...
when that white skin gets 60-70 years old, it is going to look sad up against brown or black skin
My wife is super-afraid of this; age was not kind to my mother-in-law. While one of the Chinese brothers I knew in UCLA - his mother seemed perpetually stuck at like 40. God apportions His favors amo...
But if Trump is crazy, the Russian leadership has to deal with crazies. You need to play by game theory. Game theory says you shouldn't always fold, and have to be somewhat unpredictable. (Folding some times, but being tough at other times.)
It’s a diplomat, who has not got some great grasp military terminology
Diplomats normally do choose their words very carefully. I doubt what he said was not what his bosses told him to be the party line. It was also never corrected, despite the uproar in the MSM.
If he said "launching pla...
How the hell did Jobbik f*ck up so badly?
I was expecting that the drift of European politics to revolve more and more around immigration and identity issues would benefit Jobbik more than anyone else.
My understanding of the Marxist dialectic is that it would advocate abolition/minimization of the means of production from private, bourgeoisie control and while neither the Russian coalition nor the American one explicitly promote the interests of the proletariat through public/state control, Ru...
Karl Marx would be horrified with modern Russia
Karl Marx was horrified about Russia in his own day, so it wouldn't be exactly much of a change.
And sorry, I understand you're a leftist, but the fact that representatives of major Western powers now present Karl Marx (whose ideas aren't just s...
It was different when the Red army occupied the other half of Europe and of Germany, at least then a war would have been about issues genuinely central to us.
Fermi's Paradox answered: As a technology increases with time approaching infinity, the likelihood of a species eradicating itself th...
Let me put here this article:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-envoy-threatens-war-against-us-over-syria-strikes-lc2k578cf
NATO wars start when the other side chooses to shoot back.
Cet animal est très méchant: Quand on l'attaque, il se défend.
My feeling is: if you have to destroy the world rather than knuckle under to the bullies, go ahead. Better dead than red.
I understand the sentiment, but frankly, I deeply resent the idea that large parts of my country (certainly the part where I live) might get destroyed for the bizarre excep...
And Trump just taunted Putin. I find it unlikely that Putin won’t respond. He has to, if he has any self-respect.
Putin doesn’t respond to insults - he’s been called worse: “Hitler”, “dictator” etc. He doesn’t personalize an issue - something that Western politicians/pundits a...
Because both sides had reasonable positions based on geopolitics, it was easy to find a way out.
I agree with your general point, but I don't think it can be said it was easy to find a peaceful solution to the Cuban missile crisis. Despite JFK and Crushchev both being fundamentally rational pe...
The German diplomats in Moscow cultivated a very nice relationship with their Soviet hosts up until the declaration of war. It probably reflected their personal sympathies. The German ambassador, von Schulenburg often hinted at the coming invasion, trying to warn his hosts of the coming invasion.
And what about the OPCW inspectors who, it was announced yesterday, are shortly to arrive in Syria
I'd certainly be choosing my accommodation in Damascus carefully, if I were one of them.
Trump made a blunder here by referencing Russia’s threat of retaliation in his tweet (“Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria”). If he were smart, he would have stayed quiet about that part to make it easier to sell a possible Russian retaliation as “unprovoked aggr...