Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Who maintains the scaffolding of freedom? The prosperity the western world enjoyed for decades was the result of ideas, specifically classical liberal ideas about free trade, individual rights, limited government, and rule of law. They created the conditions under which innovation flourished in the US. But ideas are like infrastructure. If you don’t maintain them, they decay. (Get Down and Shruti)
• Why San Francisco has seen a sudden, stunning surge in the demand for mansions. San Francisco has long been a market for the affluent, but if recent developments are any indication, the city’s longstanding wealth gap is about to become even more pronounced: Luxury homes across the city are selling faster than they have in a while as the AI boom floods San Francisco with fresh riches. Startups are scaling fast, stock options are turning into cash, and high-paid tech workers are returning to the city amid fierce talent wars fought by employers — boosting demand for real estate and pushing the high-end market into gear. (San Francisco Chronicle) see also How Florida uses your taxes after hurricanes fits the definition of insanity: What our state calls storm resiliency planning requires hardworking taxpayers to pay for some of our wealthiest residents’ lifestyle choices, which often include rebuilding in hurricane-prone areas. (USA Today)
• The Age of Enshittification: In a new book, the technology critic Cory Doctorow expands on a coinage that has become bleakly relevant, in Silicon Valley and beyond. (New Yorker)
• Famous Cognitive Psychology Experiments that Failed to Replicate. The field of psychology had a big crisis in the 2010s, when many widely accepted results turned out to be much less solid than previously thought. It’s called the replication crisis, because labs around the world tried and failed to replicate, in new experiments, previous results published by their original “discoverers.” (Aether Mug)
• Americans can’t stop betting parlays. Sportbooks are cashing in. It is called a parlay – a single wager that depends on you getting each of the component bets correct. massively popular type of wager that offers long odds and big potential payouts. And bettors love parlays. (Washington Post) see also Sports Betting Apps Have a Powerful New Tool to Keep Users Gambling: In-game betting is predicted to grow to more than $14 billion by the end of the decade. It’s a huge part of the sports gambling industry. Public health officials worry that it could be increasing the risks for gamblers. Credit… (New York Times)
• A biological 0-day? Threat-screening tools may miss AI-designed proteins. Ordering DNA for AI-designed toxins doesn’t always raise red flags. (Ars Technica)
• Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August: The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic. (New York Times)
• The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America: The right loves the accounts, which often rail against supposed voter fraud. They’re run by a Macedonian who illegally donated to a U.S. House candidate. (Rolling Stone) See also The Macedonian Fake News Industry and US Elections. During fieldwork in Veles, where we interviewed several residents and disinformation creators, we found that the epicenter of this viral phenomenon was Mirko Ceselkoski, an autodidact social media expert, teacher, and mentor to Veles’ fake news operators. We interviewed Ceselkoski and registered and attended his online course—the same course numerous Veles residents took offline. Our research confirms (1) the pivotal role Ceselkoski had in the creation of this industry; (2) the economic motivation driving the fake news disseminators; and (3) the manner in which the mostly young people in their early twenties with little English fluency were able to generate so much traffic and disseminate so much disinformation. (Cambridge Core)
• Frankenstein’s Sheep: Cloned and genetically modified animals are entering the black market, possibly forever altering our ecosystems. (New York Magazine)
• Why does the Supreme Court keep bending the knee to Trump? As a new term begins, the justices have continually failed to provide a check on presidential power – with disastrous consequences. (The Guardian)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Jurrien Timmer, Director of Global Macro at Fidelity Investments, which manages $16 trillion in for 20 million clients. Timmer, a Chartered Market Technician (CMT), is part of Fidelity’s Global Asset Allocation (GAA) group, anf specializes in asset allocation and global macro strategy.
These 20 Popular Apps Are Tracking Everything You Do
Source: PC Magazine
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