At the intersection of Vulnerability and Humility you find Understanding and Empathy. --- econ | cinema | foreign policy | gamification | human progress
Wichita, KS
Joined January 2010
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Michael Barrett retweeted
France has spent more than it has taken in for the past 52 years.
The problem is not lack of spending.
Michael Barrett retweeted
Individual French workers pay tens of thousands to social security every year only to watch the recipients burn their cities down
xitter.cf/koshercockney/status/2…
Michael Barrett retweeted
I’m skeptical that this will result in improved staffing in French classrooms.
Twenty years ago a "France can't win" quip would have earned a chuckle as another jab about French penchant for surrender.
Now, genuinely and fearfully, I'm not convinced France can win. 😬
Michael Barrett retweeted
Why are people roasting a 60 year old woman who just donated 7 billion dollars directly to American children? Is it because thousands of government and non-profit employees didn't get to skim it first?
A survey of teachers in my home town, Wichita, issued and reported by the school district itself, rated classroom behavior a priority concern.
Not new buildings, not more pay, not classroom funding– student behavior was the critical issue in improving education.
Michael Barrett retweeted
A reminder that buying a house because you want your children to be educated in its school district amounts to shopping for schools just as much as using a voucher amounts to shopping for schools. Vouchers give poorer families some of the freedom that richer families already have.
Michael Barrett retweeted
The idea that public schools are entitled to money or enrollment regardless of how well they perform is bizarre; by analogy, I doubt anyone would argue that you’re obligated to shop at a supermarket even when it’s been providing nothing but terrible, overpriced food.
It was there all along... the answer we've been searching for.
Three cheers for Holbein!
That's a hard "NO".
"Flourishing" and "thriving" as priorities are reserved for humans. Full stop.
AI ethics has focused too much on protecting humans and ignored the welfare of AI agents themselves.
We only ask: How do we align models for the flourishing of humanity?
We need to also ask: How do we design AI so that they can flourish?
^ this is what a new breed of AI-welfare theorists claim. This idea of AI-welfare seemed decadent to me at first glance, but some of the most important philosophers of our age argue that we need to take it seriously. Otherwise, we could be harming, enslaving, and killing trillions of beings.
If the arc of Western modernity is a series of expansions of the moral circle -- the abolitionists, women’s suffrage, the queer movement, animal-rights -- perhaps AI agents will be the next heated battleground of who deserves moral consideration.
My guest NYU Philosopher @LedermanHarvey (now at Anthropic) gives us a comprehensive overview of the burgeoning debate around AI-welfare.
Michael Barrett retweeted
We've started the second quarter-century following 9/11. Is it time to restore citizens' rights and roll back on the security state yet?
Michael Barrett retweeted
A reminder that defenders of capitalism don’t actually accept:
Trickle-down economics
That the wealthy are entitled to their wealth because they’re morally better
That hard work alone is sufficient for success
That we’re atomistic individuals with no need for community
Ariely was a gateway for my interest in behavioral sciences back in the day.
His work was a delight to read and "Arming the Donkeys" was always interesting.
The first rumblings of impropriety years ago stabbed enough. Scrapes a scabbed wound, this does.
An influential paper by Ariely & Wertenbroch (2002) reported two studies with tampered data.
Post 1 of 2.
datacolada.org/138
Meta: We're concerned about the impact of political ads on the community, so we're blanket banning certain types of ads.
Also, Meta: Noodz 4 lulz
wired.com/story/meta-ran-ads…
Michael Barrett retweeted
Now that almost everyone has blamed "the other side" for total federal debt passing $40 trillion,
1) let's put SOME blame on the obviously-broken-and-incentive-incompatible federal budget process, and
2) let's try to find common ground on fixing it.