Tag Archives: Analysis

Short Termism

Posted on March 4, 2017 by TheZvi

Epistemic Status: Metrics look good Original Post: Larry Summers: Case Still Out On Whether Short-Termism is a Problem There is a long-standing hypothesis that corporate America focuses too much on short-term results. Larry Summers looks at a new study by McKinsey (McKinsey’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Death by Metrics, Economics | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

The AI Paper with The Best Title Ever

Posted on February 24, 2017 by TheZvi

Epistemic Status: Confident I understood the paper, but no promises on its implications The title is “Learning to learn by gradient descent by gradient descent.” If anyone can top that title I am eager to hear about it. The idea … Continue reading →

Posted in Rationality, Reviews | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Book Review: How Asia Works by Joe Studwell

Posted on February 18, 2017 by TheZvi

How Asia Works has a theory about how development economics works: You must follow The Way. To the extent that you follow The Way, your country will prosper. To the extent that you fail to follow The Way, your country … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

The Thing and the Symbolic Representation of The Thing

Posted on June 30, 2015 by TheZvi

Let’s assume there is a thing that all would agree is, in context, a Good Thing(tm) that someone in your situation would want. Do you want the thing, or do you want the symbolic representation of the thing?* This sounds … Continue reading →

Posted in Death by Metrics, Impractical Optimization, Personal Experience, Rationality | Tagged , , , | 38 Comments

Self Service Roundup

Posted on June 11, 2015 by TheZvi

Follow-up to: Full Service Before moving on to other topics, I thought I would round out my thoughts on self/full service itself (for some good follow-up on the drugstores, see the comments of the previous post) about the History of Self-Service, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

What If It Rains?

Posted on May 29, 2015 by TheZvi

Follow Up To: Full Service Gas stations in New Jersey do not have awnings to protect customers from the rain. Let us presume for the moment that due to some combination of inertia, regulations and initial costs, it is not … Continue reading →

Posted in Death by Metrics, Economics, Impractical Optimization | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Full Service

Posted on May 24, 2015 by TheZvi

New Jersey has a law that says that you are not allowed to pump your own gas. They have had this law for 70 years. This is, of course, absurd. But if it is so absurd, why do 63 percent … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

NFL is a perfect example of complexity creep

Posted on May 22, 2015 by TheZvi

The NFL has voted to adopt a new rule that extra point attempts are snapped from the fifteen yard line, whereas two point conversions will continue to be run from the two yard line, but with the additional rule that … Continue reading →

Posted in Impractical Optimization, Sports | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

TPP is about as good as it is supposed to be

Posted on May 19, 2015 by TheZvi

Tyler Cohen stakes out quite a sensible position on whether or not we should approve the trade deal called TPP: What would convince me to oppose TPP if is somebody did a study showing the following: when you use a … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Twelve Virtues of Rationality

Posted on May 17, 2015 by TheZvi

Yesterday, Raymond Arnold sent out an email announcing that those at Highgarden had come up with a really cool art project and invited everyone to come down and participate. The idea was to paint panels depicting the Twelve Virtues of … Continue reading →

Posted in Good Advice, Rationality | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments