Basically, evidence of shenanigans of samples or workers at the Wuhan lab would change the conclusion, but China has obstructed all attempts at independent investigations that could find such evidence. I think this is why the lab leak theory is still compelling.
Thanks for those links! A couple of points in no particular order. 1) This redit thread is listed as being 11 months old, whereas Wade's writeup is.. i think from May 5th, so dont expect any direct refutation of Wade in the Redit series.
2) the Redit series actually cites (pretty unconvincingly, IMO) the WIV's history of transparency as proof that it didnt accidentally release COVID:
"And I can hear someone out there, shouting into the darkness… “but it happened in 2004!...It happened in 2008!” (117,118)
Yes, but you know what’s interesting about that: those events are part of why this probably wasn’t a lab accident. We know about those events, because scientists (including some Chinese ones) weren’t interested in covering them up (117,118,119).
Why would they cover it up now? Why would they behave differently than they did in 2004 or 2008? Why would these Chinese scientists reverse course on being honest?"
The Redditor doesnt mention the 1977 Russian H1N1 outbreak which was both most likely an accidental release and covered up by scientists and officials at the time.
I too was unconvinced when I read it a few months ago, on balance of evidence. I don't think he was claiming past transparency proves transparency today, merely that it's evidence in favour of.
Then again, past leaks were relatively minor compared to SARS-COV-2, so perhaps by the time this leak was detected it had already spread around the world. Also, past leaks happened under different government administrators, so perhaps the current administrators had a different view on the PR nightmare this would have caused.
Boy, I wish people would just write essays and not hack them up into tweets. That was too hard to wade through.
But to judge from the first half dozen bites, he seems to be rebutting the theory that it was an engineered biological weapon, which Wade concedes from the start.
Since it's long, let me summarize the points of the virologist Duehr that I found most important, and comment on it:
- The largest part of it argues that the virus has not been artificially created from a known backbone like RaTG-13 (i.e., from a virus whose sequence has been published in a previous publication). For example, all the sections of mutation speed etc. hammer this point in. I think both sides agree that this is convincing. But the argument is still weak; the pro-lab counter is that most virus sequences (including most virus sequences from the Wuhan lab) have not been published, and the argument collapses if the backbone was unpublished.
- The strongest argument contra-lab from Duehr is that "Dr. Shi’s projects almost always provide duplicate samples of every bat to both Chinese scientists and laboratories in other countries". This is a strong case since it would make it difficult to conceal the backbone if the virus really came from the lab. I am not sure whether I should read the "almost all" part of the statement literally. Did they really collaborate with other labs on all their projects? We are talking about 400+ viruses and 1500+ strains. (From the link Sandro posted in this thread.) Still, it makes it less likely that the compromising information from the lab hypothesis would only exist in Wuhan, and I personally find a conspiracy implausible if it goes beyond a single lab.
- Duehr claims that the most plausible origin of the pandemic is outside of Wuhan, possibly far away. I haven't heard this argument in recent discussions, so that claim might just be outdated, but I am not confident.
- Duehr also claims that similar experiments happen all the time, at many places in the world. So having an experiment nearby the origin of the pandemic would not be surprising. Other contra-lab paper have also made this claim. As far as I can tell, this is factually wrong if we define "similar" as "gain of function in vivo in humanized animals". Duehr provides four papers as evidence, claiming that similar experiments were done there. Another contra-lab article provides another four papers. I have checked all eight, and "gain of function in vivo in humanized animals" happens in exactly one of these articles, and this is an earlier paper from Dr. Shi's group in Wuhan. Right now my hypothesis is that Wuhan is/was the only lab in the world to perform such experiments. (If anyone knows better, please tell me. How many labs do you estimate were there?) I may seem picky about the definition, but I think it is important. Removing any of the conditions makes a lab accident much less likely: if it's not in vivo, there are no airborne infectious particles; if it's not in humanized animals, then the virus is optimized for a different species than humans.
Good summary, but I have to take issue with the following of Duehr's claims:
* Duehr claims that the most plausible origin of the pandemic is outside of Wuhan, possibly far away: it's plausible if you already assume a natural origin, which is begging the question.
* Duehr also claims that similar experiments happen all the time, at many places in the world. So having an experiment nearby the origin of the pandemic would not be surprising: err, what? It's not "nearby the origin", it's ground zero as far as we can tell. Big difference. Further, even if these experiments were happening all around the world, if an outbreak begins in the same city as one of these labs, you better believe a lab leak is more plausible than if the outbreak happened further away.
Yes, good objections. Though for the second one, there are two numbers floating around: if I get it right, the lab itself was 14km away from ground zero, and there was a building of the institute only 600m away. But if I get it right, the experiments did not happen in the nearby building, so I would count the lab as "same city" instead of "ground zero". But you are right: even if it was 50 labs worldwide and we count it only as "same city", it would still be remarkable.
It still makes a difference to me whether it is 50 labs or whether Wuhan had literally the only lab in the world where such experiments were done.
I believe it was literally the only lab in China where such experiments were done. Or at least that it was the only lab in China where such experiments were supposed to be done. There are other labs elsewhere in the world, most in countries with a better reputation for enforcing safety regulations. And part of the hypothesis is that the research was being outsourced to China, in which case "...because it was faster and cheaper, because Chinese regulators turn a blind eye to the fact that you're not really doing the tedious BSL-4 stuff" is at least plausible.
Hm, but do you actually know a lab or a research paper? I have heard the claim "similar stuff was done elsewhere" before, but whenever I tried to actually find such a lab, I couldn't. As I said, some people gave references, but the ones that I checked were not "similar". At least not in the sense "gain of function in vivo in humanized animals" that you need to have a really dangerous situation.
Actually, according to Duehr, the virologist community thinks that the Wuhan lab was as safe as labs elsewhere, and I buy his arguments. You may want to read his position on this.
The worst thing in that respect is that the experiments were at least formally allowed in BSL-2 environment (if they were derived from some other bat virus than SARS and MERS). Which had nothing to do with the location, it was made by the funding agency in the US.
I'll try and steelman GoF. (which I think should stop.) By studying how viruses change/ evolve to a new host we learn something that helps block against the next pandemic.
It might. I think the point of research is that you don't always know where it will you lead, if you did then you wouldn't call it 'research'. So you through a lot of shit at the wall and sometimes those recombinations get you very effective treatments like (immunotherapy or something).
Anyway, you say that one particular line of research is verboten or restricted and there would be an effect. I'm not saying it would kill the whole field of virology or anything, but if you look at is say there are 100 possible treatments for the next pandemic. If you institute this ban then maybe that goes to 50 or 20 or whatever 100/N is where N is unknown. It may be a relatively low so you still have dozens of effective therapies to choose from (like us right now)
Or it may be higher in which case you might have just one potential, and then things would be not so great. /Steelman off
I started it but still have too much lingering pandemic brain fog to get deeply into it. I find German-translated-to-English takes a lot of mental power. Just oddly heard about it the other week immediately before seeing your Cassirer tweets.
I very much enjoy your twitter mega threads. I think your experts vs populists points are interesting, although I think the distinction that Robin Hanson made between Experts and Elites (https://www.overcomingbias.com/2021/02/experts-versus-elites.html) may be helpful here too, as it reminds me a lot of what I see coming from the grey tribe critiques of a lot of the pandemic response (Balaji Srinivasan's critiques of bailouts and push for DeFi come to mind).
I'd also really encourage considering structuring paragraphs/sentences that end with "2.0" differently as figuring out where full stops should go added some unnecessary mental load. Maybe replace with "v2" instead?
As the unofficial unofficial associate (maybe) podcast of Astral Codex Ten I'd like to mention the latest episode with this blog's readers' favourite Bret Devereaux (of This Isn't Sparta! fame) in conversation with Professor David Abulafia about the ancient Mediterranean. They talked about Alexandria, exactly how may rowers these insanely huge galleys had and much much more. (I see from Zohar Atkins who just beat me to being first that I am not the only one pushing my own stuff . . .)
Excellent! I love Bret's work and have recently hit a gap in my podcast queue, downloaded. If this is going to be the plug-yourself thread, I may as well link my "rational-adjacent, 2 dudes talking" podcast Affix, latest episode discussing Robin Hanson on Experts vs Elites (which I also linked to Zohar earlier in the thread):
I'm going on vacation for a week and could use book recommendations. I'd prefer some lighter non-fiction; I've been doing dense mathematical reading for the past while, and would like to get away from that for a bit. Ideally I'd like something entertaining, well written, and about a non-mainstream topic (one such book I enjoyed was The Deadliest Enemy by epidemiologist Osterholm and writer Olshaker).
Always tempted to recommend _Passions Within Reason_ by Robert H. Frank, but I noticed that I don't really know what a mainstream non-fiction topic is. Does "economics and evolution brought together to explain several human emotions" qualify as mainstream? If it does, this book won't pass your criteria.
I'm not sure either, but I have studied a bit of econ related to that stuff, so while it might be outside the mainstream, I'm not sure it's far enough out of my familiarity. Thank you though
Oof, this is a tough one. It's almost an axiom that all math textbooks are bad (with Spivak's Calculus being the only exception I can think of). Maybe that's only true of the core authors like Apostol or Stein, but I'm also not sure you're looking for something like that.
Personally, I tend to try to read things outside of my area (or just fluff fiction if I'm being honest), but one book I would strongly recommend is Logicomix, which presents an excellent biography of Russell as well as capturing one of the pivotal struggles in mathematics. As the name suggests, it's a comic book, so it's not a heavy read, but it's definitely worth the time.
"It's almost an axiom that all math textbooks are bad"
Giving you the benefit of the doubt here, I suspect you are intending to say "bad light reading". In which case, that's mostly true.
If you're saying most math textbooks are "bad bad" I strongly disagree and would be happy to recommend several "good good" ones, depending on your interest/mathematical maturity
Um, please don’t wait. I am finally getting back to a place in life where I’m going to be able to take mathematics back up. I want to start back over at Algebra. Working my way towards...whatever it ends up I can do. Lay it on me. All of ‘em.
For you I'd recommend you really hack something like Mystik's recommendation of Spivak or maybe Apostol's calculus, if you have the patience. Once you're into the land of rigor and proofs, try Fraleigh or if you loved calc, look under the hood with an analysis book. Here's a repost with my response from a similar question below,
Here's a few I've enjoyed,
Fraleigh - A First Course in Abstract Algebra
[It's on the gentle side, not dry, and provides a good elementary foundation]
Kaplansky - Set theory and metric spaces
[This book... The first thing you'll note is that it's less than 150 pages long. It's essentially a highlight reel of the subject's foundation it also touches on many naively interesting concepts, like cardinals and ordinals. If you've never done anything with ZFC set theory, this is a fun, quick place to start]
Ebbinghaus - Mathematical Logic
[After going through this book, I'm not convinced there isn't a better treatment of the subject (Maybe some logicians can weigh in). That said, it's where I learned what Gödel was actually saying, not the confused pop notions.
If you have a good grounding in linear algebra already, you might enjoy
Lax - Linear Algebra and It's Applications
[Note, it's not "applied" in the common sense of the word. Also, if you don't have prior exp. the book will be... rough sailing. My honors prof used this—it was my first exposure—he advised the entire class to not blink while reading less we miss something vitally important]
I mean I do suppose it depends on our definition of bad. I meant “bad” in the sense of it would be very difficult to teach yourself from them.
I agree that there are some good texts out there, I mentioned it might just be the core texts because Spivak is the only text I’ve had a professor assign that I considered good to learn from. But this was intentional, many of my professors said something along the lines of “it’s good to have a textbook that is not very clear, because then you have to struggle with the material more”
So in some ways I was being a bit hyperbolic I suppose. In other ways this has legitimately been my experience, so I don’t have many experiences with texts I’d actually recommend
What has been your method of learning mathematics? Constructing lots of examples for each concept independent of the text? Reading papers? My general trajectory has been: Read textbook and not understand much -> Read papers and understand even less -> Suddenly understand mathematical concept in a completely different context -> Thinking that I would have understood this concept much faster had I just focused on reading the textbook.
Thankfully I’ve been able to take a lot of mathematics courses at college and post-grad so when I’m enrolled in a class my trajectory is usually: Listen to the lecture -> work through homework -> work through book on stuff I don’t understand for the HW -> Ask the professor for anything I’m stumped on still
When I’m learning something on my own (not often yet as I’m not quite started on my dissertation), I usually pick a topic, come up with questions about it, research and skim papers until I find something with those answers, read through it and physically rewrite the paper so I force myself to confront the material, and then repeat
If you're offering, I'd like to hear your "good good" math textbooks. Upper undergraduate or graduate level. The last math textbooks I loved are Apostol's two number theory / complex function books. They're perfect for me. I've been struggling trying to find something I enjoy as much as those.
I highly recommend Thurston's 3 manifolds (I mentioned it elsewhere in this discussion). Strogatz's Nonlinear Dynamics is beautiful imo -- I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to read it. Arnold's ODE book if you've already taken a class/read a book on ODE. Milnor's lecture notes/books. I learned a lot from Lax's lecture notes on functional analysis. I have his book, but haven't read it except for the historical notes. When I was a student, I enjoyed reading Reed & Simon's treatment of unbounded operators, but I am not sure if I am recommending it or not. I also learned a lot from Hirsch & Smale, Introduction to Diff Eq, Dyn Sys and Linear Algebra (1974). The book has been completely rewritten for the 2nd and 3rd editions (with Devaney, and a new title), and I am completely unfamiliar with the newer incarnation.
In a slightly different direction, and perhaps revisiting the elementary topics, a friend whose recommendations I respect highly likes Gelfand's Linear Algebra. He has also recommended Bamberg & Sternberg "A course in mathematics for students of physics" to me multiple times.
Mathematical tastes differ, so take this with a grain of salt.
[It's on the gentle side, not dry, and provides a good elementary foundation]
Kaplansky - Set theory and metric spaces
[This book... The first thing you'll note is that it's less than 150 pages long. It's essentially a highlight reel of the subject's foundation it also touches on many naively interesting concepts, like cardinals and ordinals. If you've never done anything with ZFC set theory, this is a fun, quick place to start]
Ebbinghaus - Mathematical Logic
[After going through this book, I'm not convinced there isn't a better treatment of the subject (Maybe some logicians can weigh in). That said, it's where I learned what Gödel was actually saying, not the confused pop notions.
If you have a good grounding in linear algebra already, you might enjoy
Lax - Linear Algebra and It's Applications
[Note, it's not "applied" in the common sense of the word. Also, if you don't have prior exp. the book will be... rough sailing. My honors prof used this—it was my first exposure—he advised the entire class to not blink while reading less we miss something vitally important]
Contra you: The math textbooks that I've red are all pretty good and I highly them. Here they are, in ~chronological order of reading:
- Probability and Statistical Inference by Nitis Mukhopadhyay
- A First Course in Linear Model Theory by Nalini Ravishanker and Dipak K. Dey
- Introduction to Time Series and Forecasting (second edition) by Peter J. Rockwell and Richard A. Davis
- Discrete Mathematics by Norman L. Biggs
(My mom's a statistician so that's why there's such an emphasis on statistics, and anyways I'd recommend the middle two much less than the first & last.)
I've been reading Wigderson's Mathematics and Computation recently. It's a bit reference-heavy at times but does a great job giving a general survey of a whole lot of the field of Theoretical Computer Science.
I'm glad to see "Visual Complex Analysis" by Needham made your list. I took a graduate class where the professor taught from that book and it was the best math class I ever took, hands down. That book changed my view of what a math textbook could be. Most textbooks refuse to encourage intuition, this book does nothing but.
Thanks for the Needham shout out. I started Penrose's "Road to Reality" last year and got bogged down in chapters 7 (Complex number calculus) and 8 (Rieman surfaces and mappings) Needlam is a referenced by Penrose in chap 7., will it also help me with the Rieman surface? Or something else.
(Physics background. I use complex analysis, but with little deep understanding.)
I really really enjoyed reading Road to Reality a couple of years back. It's a funny book, because you really need to already know most of what is in the book to understand it. What Penrose does is take a lot of complicated mathematical concepts (that the reader is ideally already comfortable with), and give a very hands-on insight into them that textbooks don't necessarily supply. He also of course illuminates connections between them in order to build up the whole edifice of modern Physics.
A good source for Riemannian surfaces is the book by Rick Miranda. Reading perhaps the first chapter of that should suffice for most of what Penrose does
Thanks for the recommendation! Is there value in reading these lectures now, if I have already taken undergrad and some grad courses in Physics. Are there a lot of valuable insights in them that regular textbooks don't necessarily supply?
Oh my. Physics type, Yeah Feynman is great. I'll reread these every ~5-10 years. Most of the physics I use is in there. .. not really so good for a first year student. But it's full of insights as to how Feynman saw the world. They are free online from Cal tech.
A few of us in my hi-tech company did a book club where we worked through a fairly approachable book on Category Theory titled Seven Sketches in Compositionality. Some bits of it were harder going than others but overall it was distinctly enjoyable. (It helps that I love Category Theory pretty much precisely because it spans a lot of different areas of mathematics and finds unexpected connections tying them all together.)
Thanks for the recommendation! I've read some applied category theory on Joan Baez's blog, and didn't get a clear idea of whether using category theory in things like chemical equations, bio systems, etc gives relevant insights that the pre-existing model does not. Does the book address the usefulness of category theory in these domains? I suppose one use could be that we now have a common language to talk about these disparate domains
I really enjoyed _A Distant Mirror_ by Barbara Tuchman, an excellent history of the 14th century. It's not exactly light reading but it is very well written and entertaining (if you like that kind of thing)
It’s different than your example book because it’s more narrative driven, but otherwise it qualifies as light non-fiction, well-written, and very entertaining. It’s a Cold War spy thriller about a KGB agent who became a double agent for Britain in the 70s and 80s.
Semi random author list. (You've probably know some.) Oliver Sachs, E.O. Wilson (I even enjoyed his tome on ants.) James Gleik, R.V. Jones ("Most Secret War", I also liked "instruments and experiences", but it's hard to find.) More physicsy B. Pippard "Physics of Vibration vol I... this is for the experimental type.
Oh and on the same subject, does anyone have a recommendation for a good intro Economics text? Thanks.
I think there's a freely available textbook on the Marginal Revolution website. I think I read the first chapter and it had lots ot helpful illustrations, etc.
If you have any interest in history, then "In The Lion's Court – Power, Ambition and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII" by Derek Wilson. It dates from 2001 so not the very latest scholarship, but it's not too heavy on the history and scholarship side and takes the approach of picking six men named Thomas who revolved around Henry in his court between 1499 to 1549.
"This book tells for the first time the interlocking stories of six Thomases - Wolsey, More, Cromwell, Cranmer, Howard and Wriothesley - who served as close advisers of Henry VIII - and all suffered for it. Two were beheaded, two were disgraced and narrowly avoided execution, one was burned to death and the other probably took his own life. In the Lion's Court is a revelation of just how perilous it was to be close to England's most tyrannical king."
Wilson definitely has his own opinions as to who the goodies and baddies were, but that makes it a light enough read.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. One of the most enjoyable reads of the last year, surprisingly relaxing. It takes multiple interesting approaches to fungi and mycelium. The audiobook is also quite good and read by the author.
Highly recommend “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, which is about a disaster with a guided Mt Everest climb in the 90s. He participated in the climb, reached the summit, and was involved in the attempted rescue of his fellow climbers.
I agree with the other comments about the difficulty of determining how much of a topic you know with that kind of granularity, but I assume you’re referencing the “80% of the topic/skill in 20% of the time and vice versa” idea, which I think has some real value.
I’m a business transactions lawyer. I think I’ve learned 80% of the practical domain of solar generation project M&A, and it took me (i) probably three of my law schools classes (Contracts + Business Organizations + a drafting course), which I’ll cumulate as six months, plus (ii) 2.5 years or so of licensed practice with close mentorship and long working hours. I think the rest of the 80/20 proposition is true, i.e., it would take me another 10-15 years to learn the rest.
By contrast, I’ve been studying piano and composition since I was seven, and I still don’t think I’m 20% there on any measure.
Do you think most of M&A is related to memorizing laws and past court cases? Is something else involved?
Piano seems hard because it combines moving your body with memorization, so you can't strictly memorize key sequences to become good at piano. Do you play any other instrument? Piano is particularly difficult
That would be in the wheelhouse of an M&A litigator, someone who sues or defends about contested M&A transactions. I’m a transactional attorney, so I negotiate and draft M&A transactions - structuring the deals and writing contracts, basically. I say all that because, as opposed to litigators, what I do is all about process, writing skills and speaking skills, and very little about memorization. I think that’s what made it easy to learn quickly. But writing that now, I realize that maybe it’s cheating a bit not to count the many years of practice writing and speaking persuasively that set me up to do transactional work. It would be tough to draw that line for any skill, e.g., if you’re talking about learning a third language, do you have to credit any time spent learning your second language, which probably made the third one a lot quicker? Etc.
I do play several other instruments, and I agree piano might be the hardest in a certain way. What I’ll say about piano, though, is it makes your body think that pressing a button will get you the sound you want. That translates okay to fretted string instruments like guitar or banjo, but it sets you up very poorly for violin, trumpet, or any other instrument that requires you to make the sound with your body much more directly and finely. I think the skill curve for instruments of different families look a lot different for that kind of reason.
Oh thanks for clarifying. Yeah, writing and speaking probably have spillover effects, although I think those effects in traditional education have been studied and found to be smaller than previously thought.
I'm trying to learn natural language processing right now, and there are tons of steps and tons of decisions to make at each step. Luckily, there isn't a time component like a musical instrument where I have to write things at a certain pace, but the learning curve is steep. I'm trying to figure out if there is a better way than what I am doing now, which is looking at a working model, then reading the documentation on each part until I know what is going on. I think I'll have reached my much hated '80%' mark when I have a taste about which decisions to make and reasons to make those decisions, rather than copying other stuff that already works.
Bon voyage man! Sounds like a very worthwhile effort. Without knowing hardly anything about CS - I have to imagine that what you’re doing (working from a working model, reading documentation on each piece) is the best and most efficient way to go about it. Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that lends itself to watching lectures or some other way of learning.
One way I like to approach a new topic is to find a good undergrad text on the topic, and then read it like a novel.... not worrying if parts of it are confusing.
Years ago someone in an SSC open thread asked me for the best paper on educational fadeout effects, and in particular the (false imo) claim that they are a measurement artifact. I wasn't really satisfied with the papers that I could point them to at the time, but here's something new and better: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7787577/
Fair warning it's over 40 pages but lots of great stuff; I like the consideration of methods and measurement effects best. (reposted)
My cryptocurrency hedge fund is looking to hire an engineer. PM me if you're interested. Small team + very high potential upside.
Highlights:
* Fully quantitative price prediction and trading (we don't do MM or exchange arbitrage)
* Our returns are uncorrelated to crypto market (pure alpha)
* One of the few funds to offer a BTC share product (we make people more BTC)
* We have been raising additional capital crazy fast this year due to our stellar performance.
Two of the co-founders (me + Satvik Beri) are long term EAs. I've personally donated $$ to MIRI + CFAR way back in 2012-2014. I was also a co-founder of Arbital, in case you heard of it. ;)
We have two fully remote positions: one is for 5+ years of experience, another for 7+ years.
I'm a bit hesitant to add any other requirements, since we mostly just look for smart engineers who get shit done and who would be excited to work with us.
Hey, I'm a longtime reader (thanks for all the great content Scott!) but just made an account upon seeing this. I'm super interested in quant trading stuff, only have about a year of industry experience (in software development and data analytics), but 2+ years working with a startup and in labs, and I've been playing with algo trading since high school. B.S. in mathematics. I know this is a long shot, but let me know if you'd be willing to consider me!
I'm already employed as a research economist. I just feel some affinity to UIUC. But, if you ever have an interest in talking about regulation or working with a university based research group, let me know. This is me: https://www.williamrinehart.com/
hi there alexei, do you have any other way of getting in touch? i might be interested, but do not see any email on your profile (maybe it's a subscriber-only feature?) and do not use linkedin.
Does anyone have a theory as to why thinking about philosophy or other high level concepts can actually feel physically heady? Why does galaxy braining feel this way?
I think this might be what's more commonly known as "insight porn" (the name itself basically explains why it feels heady), unless what you mean by "philosophy or other high level concepts" is much more general.
Does "insight porn" as a phrase imply that the topic has little or no content? I looked it up in urban dictionary and it's defined there as sortof cheap tricks of the "theory of everything" variety, reading with no actual learning going on.
Thank you for the definitions. That "insight porn" exists makes sense. By definition there are other experiences of thought that are not insight porn. I expect that there may be experiences or sensations associated with multiple types of thought.
Ha maybe but idk if it's really an exciting feeling. Just like, spacey and removed from my body when thinking about how wild it is that there's anything at all. Maybe it's just an emotion I haven't named.
I too am interested in this. FYI, here is a link to the article in question:
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/
This was the best summary from a virologist that I've seen:
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/
Of course, none of the points raised are slam dunks as they later admitted by posting what it would take to re-examine the conclusion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did_not_come_from_the_wuhan_institute_of/fqpci3n/
Basically, evidence of shenanigans of samples or workers at the Wuhan lab would change the conclusion, but China has obstructed all attempts at independent investigations that could find such evidence. I think this is why the lab leak theory is still compelling.
Thanks for those links! A couple of points in no particular order. 1) This redit thread is listed as being 11 months old, whereas Wade's writeup is.. i think from May 5th, so dont expect any direct refutation of Wade in the Redit series.
2) the Redit series actually cites (pretty unconvincingly, IMO) the WIV's history of transparency as proof that it didnt accidentally release COVID:
"And I can hear someone out there, shouting into the darkness… “but it happened in 2004!...It happened in 2008!” (117,118)
Yes, but you know what’s interesting about that: those events are part of why this probably wasn’t a lab accident. We know about those events, because scientists (including some Chinese ones) weren’t interested in covering them up (117,118,119).
Why would they cover it up now? Why would they behave differently than they did in 2004 or 2008? Why would these Chinese scientists reverse course on being honest?"
The Redditor doesnt mention the 1977 Russian H1N1 outbreak which was both most likely an accidental release and covered up by scientists and officials at the time.
I too was unconvinced when I read it a few months ago, on balance of evidence. I don't think he was claiming past transparency proves transparency today, merely that it's evidence in favour of.
Then again, past leaks were relatively minor compared to SARS-COV-2, so perhaps by the time this leak was detected it had already spread around the world. Also, past leaks happened under different government administrators, so perhaps the current administrators had a different view on the PR nightmare this would have caused.
This published works covers all the details of how SARS-COV-2 presents many challenges to claims of natural origins: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-021-01211-0
That would be my assumption as well. A leak that amounts to nothing much is substantially different than one that kills millions.
Side note, this link discusses known accidential lab leaks, worth a read for those interested.
https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies/
Boy, I wish people would just write essays and not hack them up into tweets. That was too hard to wade through.
But to judge from the first half dozen bites, he seems to be rebutting the theory that it was an engineered biological weapon, which Wade concedes from the start.
Since it's long, let me summarize the points of the virologist Duehr that I found most important, and comment on it:
- The largest part of it argues that the virus has not been artificially created from a known backbone like RaTG-13 (i.e., from a virus whose sequence has been published in a previous publication). For example, all the sections of mutation speed etc. hammer this point in. I think both sides agree that this is convincing. But the argument is still weak; the pro-lab counter is that most virus sequences (including most virus sequences from the Wuhan lab) have not been published, and the argument collapses if the backbone was unpublished.
- The strongest argument contra-lab from Duehr is that "Dr. Shi’s projects almost always provide duplicate samples of every bat to both Chinese scientists and laboratories in other countries". This is a strong case since it would make it difficult to conceal the backbone if the virus really came from the lab. I am not sure whether I should read the "almost all" part of the statement literally. Did they really collaborate with other labs on all their projects? We are talking about 400+ viruses and 1500+ strains. (From the link Sandro posted in this thread.) Still, it makes it less likely that the compromising information from the lab hypothesis would only exist in Wuhan, and I personally find a conspiracy implausible if it goes beyond a single lab.
- Duehr claims that the most plausible origin of the pandemic is outside of Wuhan, possibly far away. I haven't heard this argument in recent discussions, so that claim might just be outdated, but I am not confident.
- Duehr also claims that similar experiments happen all the time, at many places in the world. So having an experiment nearby the origin of the pandemic would not be surprising. Other contra-lab paper have also made this claim. As far as I can tell, this is factually wrong if we define "similar" as "gain of function in vivo in humanized animals". Duehr provides four papers as evidence, claiming that similar experiments were done there. Another contra-lab article provides another four papers. I have checked all eight, and "gain of function in vivo in humanized animals" happens in exactly one of these articles, and this is an earlier paper from Dr. Shi's group in Wuhan. Right now my hypothesis is that Wuhan is/was the only lab in the world to perform such experiments. (If anyone knows better, please tell me. How many labs do you estimate were there?) I may seem picky about the definition, but I think it is important. Removing any of the conditions makes a lab accident much less likely: if it's not in vivo, there are no airborne infectious particles; if it's not in humanized animals, then the virus is optimized for a different species than humans.
Good summary, but I have to take issue with the following of Duehr's claims:
* Duehr claims that the most plausible origin of the pandemic is outside of Wuhan, possibly far away: it's plausible if you already assume a natural origin, which is begging the question.
* Duehr also claims that similar experiments happen all the time, at many places in the world. So having an experiment nearby the origin of the pandemic would not be surprising: err, what? It's not "nearby the origin", it's ground zero as far as we can tell. Big difference. Further, even if these experiments were happening all around the world, if an outbreak begins in the same city as one of these labs, you better believe a lab leak is more plausible than if the outbreak happened further away.
Yes, good objections. Though for the second one, there are two numbers floating around: if I get it right, the lab itself was 14km away from ground zero, and there was a building of the institute only 600m away. But if I get it right, the experiments did not happen in the nearby building, so I would count the lab as "same city" instead of "ground zero". But you are right: even if it was 50 labs worldwide and we count it only as "same city", it would still be remarkable.
It still makes a difference to me whether it is 50 labs or whether Wuhan had literally the only lab in the world where such experiments were done.
I believe it was literally the only lab in China where such experiments were done. Or at least that it was the only lab in China where such experiments were supposed to be done. There are other labs elsewhere in the world, most in countries with a better reputation for enforcing safety regulations. And part of the hypothesis is that the research was being outsourced to China, in which case "...because it was faster and cheaper, because Chinese regulators turn a blind eye to the fact that you're not really doing the tedious BSL-4 stuff" is at least plausible.
Hm, but do you actually know a lab or a research paper? I have heard the claim "similar stuff was done elsewhere" before, but whenever I tried to actually find such a lab, I couldn't. As I said, some people gave references, but the ones that I checked were not "similar". At least not in the sense "gain of function in vivo in humanized animals" that you need to have a really dangerous situation.
Actually, according to Duehr, the virologist community thinks that the Wuhan lab was as safe as labs elsewhere, and I buy his arguments. You may want to read his position on this.
The worst thing in that respect is that the experiments were at least formally allowed in BSL-2 environment (if they were derived from some other bat virus than SARS and MERS). Which had nothing to do with the location, it was made by the funding agency in the US.
I'll try and steelman GoF. (which I think should stop.) By studying how viruses change/ evolve to a new host we learn something that helps block against the next pandemic.
It might. I think the point of research is that you don't always know where it will you lead, if you did then you wouldn't call it 'research'. So you through a lot of shit at the wall and sometimes those recombinations get you very effective treatments like (immunotherapy or something).
Anyway, you say that one particular line of research is verboten or restricted and there would be an effect. I'm not saying it would kill the whole field of virology or anything, but if you look at is say there are 100 possible treatments for the next pandemic. If you institute this ban then maybe that goes to 50 or 20 or whatever 100/N is where N is unknown. It may be a relatively low so you still have dozens of effective therapies to choose from (like us right now)
Or it may be higher in which case you might have just one potential, and then things would be not so great. /Steelman off
Google Scholar is always worth checking; no need for institutional access or LG, as GS points right to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7787577/
Ah thanks! Will delete and repost.
For folks who like philosophy, I’m writing a new feature every two weeks on a thinker I think matters today. https://mobile.twitter.com/ZoharAtkins/status/1372675033336778755
Did you recently read Time of the Magicians?
No. Good? I liked Peter Gordon on Heidegger and Cassirer debate. I wrote my dissertation on Heidegger
I started it but still have too much lingering pandemic brain fog to get deeply into it. I find German-translated-to-English takes a lot of mental power. Just oddly heard about it the other week immediately before seeing your Cassirer tweets.
Seeing as you like both Heidegger and Wittgenstein, have you read "The Master and the Emissary" by Iain McGilchrist?
Also curious what folks make of my hypothesis that experts vs. populists is an investiture conflict 2.0 https://whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/investiture-conflict-20-experts-vs?r=8nz8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter
I very much enjoy your twitter mega threads. I think your experts vs populists points are interesting, although I think the distinction that Robin Hanson made between Experts and Elites (https://www.overcomingbias.com/2021/02/experts-versus-elites.html) may be helpful here too, as it reminds me a lot of what I see coming from the grey tribe critiques of a lot of the pandemic response (Balaji Srinivasan's critiques of bailouts and push for DeFi come to mind).
I'd also really encourage considering structuring paragraphs/sentences that end with "2.0" differently as figuring out where full stops should go added some unnecessary mental load. Maybe replace with "v2" instead?
As the unofficial unofficial associate (maybe) podcast of Astral Codex Ten I'd like to mention the latest episode with this blog's readers' favourite Bret Devereaux (of This Isn't Sparta! fame) in conversation with Professor David Abulafia about the ancient Mediterranean. They talked about Alexandria, exactly how may rowers these insanely huge galleys had and much much more. (I see from Zohar Atkins who just beat me to being first that I am not the only one pushing my own stuff . . .)
https://www.buzzsprout.com/207869/8481869-abulafia-and-devereaux-the-ancient-mediterranean
Excellent! I love Bret's work and have recently hit a gap in my podcast queue, downloaded. If this is going to be the plug-yourself thread, I may as well link my "rational-adjacent, 2 dudes talking" podcast Affix, latest episode discussing Robin Hanson on Experts vs Elites (which I also linked to Zohar earlier in the thread):
https://www.affix.live/1518706/8469814-episode-18-elites-and-experts-we-definitely-manage-to-be-neither
I'm going on vacation for a week and could use book recommendations. I'd prefer some lighter non-fiction; I've been doing dense mathematical reading for the past while, and would like to get away from that for a bit. Ideally I'd like something entertaining, well written, and about a non-mainstream topic (one such book I enjoyed was The Deadliest Enemy by epidemiologist Osterholm and writer Olshaker).
Thanks in advance!
Oh to note, I read Deadliest enemy a couple years pre-covid, so before epidemiology was such a big talking point
Batavia's Graveyard by Mike Dash. Eye popping stuff. Tom Holland's Rubicon is his best book and he is a very fine historian!
Skimmed the blurbs, they look interesting. I’ll git them a try, thanks!
I enjoy Erik Larson’s books. They seemed suited for what you’re looking for here.
I checked out his stuff, it does look about like what I'm looking for. Thank you
That’s great. Enjoy! You can’t go wrong with any of his books.
Strongly recommend The Splendid and the Vile. A page turner even though you know how it turned out 😊
Always tempted to recommend _Passions Within Reason_ by Robert H. Frank, but I noticed that I don't really know what a mainstream non-fiction topic is. Does "economics and evolution brought together to explain several human emotions" qualify as mainstream? If it does, this book won't pass your criteria.
I'm not sure either, but I have studied a bit of econ related to that stuff, so while it might be outside the mainstream, I'm not sure it's far enough out of my familiarity. Thank you though
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar. A truly great piece of writing that somehow never makes the lists.
I'll check it out, thank you
On an unrelated note, would you have recommendations for books that are math-heavy?
Oof, this is a tough one. It's almost an axiom that all math textbooks are bad (with Spivak's Calculus being the only exception I can think of). Maybe that's only true of the core authors like Apostol or Stein, but I'm also not sure you're looking for something like that.
Personally, I tend to try to read things outside of my area (or just fluff fiction if I'm being honest), but one book I would strongly recommend is Logicomix, which presents an excellent biography of Russell as well as capturing one of the pivotal struggles in mathematics. As the name suggests, it's a comic book, so it's not a heavy read, but it's definitely worth the time.
Thanks for the recommendation! Speaking of textbooks, I also like Bott and Tu a lot
Thurston's Three dimensional topology and geometry
Yes I've read a part of it, and loved it
"It's almost an axiom that all math textbooks are bad"
Giving you the benefit of the doubt here, I suspect you are intending to say "bad light reading". In which case, that's mostly true.
If you're saying most math textbooks are "bad bad" I strongly disagree and would be happy to recommend several "good good" ones, depending on your interest/mathematical maturity
Um, please don’t wait. I am finally getting back to a place in life where I’m going to be able to take mathematics back up. I want to start back over at Algebra. Working my way towards...whatever it ends up I can do. Lay it on me. All of ‘em.
I really liked “Abstract Algebra, a Comprehensive Treatment.” It’s what I used when brushing up for my GREs
I found https://github.com/GleasSpty/MATH-104-----Introduction-to-Analysis/blob/master/Gleason%2C%20Jonathan%20-%20Introduction%20to%20Analysis.pdf to be a relatively easy read, as far as math textbooks go – at times it made me laugh out loud.
For you I'd recommend you really hack something like Mystik's recommendation of Spivak or maybe Apostol's calculus, if you have the patience. Once you're into the land of rigor and proofs, try Fraleigh or if you loved calc, look under the hood with an analysis book. Here's a repost with my response from a similar question below,
Here's a few I've enjoyed,
Fraleigh - A First Course in Abstract Algebra
[It's on the gentle side, not dry, and provides a good elementary foundation]
Kaplansky - Set theory and metric spaces
[This book... The first thing you'll note is that it's less than 150 pages long. It's essentially a highlight reel of the subject's foundation it also touches on many naively interesting concepts, like cardinals and ordinals. If you've never done anything with ZFC set theory, this is a fun, quick place to start]
Ebbinghaus - Mathematical Logic
[After going through this book, I'm not convinced there isn't a better treatment of the subject (Maybe some logicians can weigh in). That said, it's where I learned what Gödel was actually saying, not the confused pop notions.
If you have a good grounding in linear algebra already, you might enjoy
Lax - Linear Algebra and It's Applications
[Note, it's not "applied" in the common sense of the word. Also, if you don't have prior exp. the book will be... rough sailing. My honors prof used this—it was my first exposure—he advised the entire class to not blink while reading less we miss something vitally important]
I mean I do suppose it depends on our definition of bad. I meant “bad” in the sense of it would be very difficult to teach yourself from them.
I agree that there are some good texts out there, I mentioned it might just be the core texts because Spivak is the only text I’ve had a professor assign that I considered good to learn from. But this was intentional, many of my professors said something along the lines of “it’s good to have a textbook that is not very clear, because then you have to struggle with the material more”
So in some ways I was being a bit hyperbolic I suppose. In other ways this has legitimately been my experience, so I don’t have many experiences with texts I’d actually recommend
What has been your method of learning mathematics? Constructing lots of examples for each concept independent of the text? Reading papers? My general trajectory has been: Read textbook and not understand much -> Read papers and understand even less -> Suddenly understand mathematical concept in a completely different context -> Thinking that I would have understood this concept much faster had I just focused on reading the textbook.
Thankfully I’ve been able to take a lot of mathematics courses at college and post-grad so when I’m enrolled in a class my trajectory is usually: Listen to the lecture -> work through homework -> work through book on stuff I don’t understand for the HW -> Ask the professor for anything I’m stumped on still
When I’m learning something on my own (not often yet as I’m not quite started on my dissertation), I usually pick a topic, come up with questions about it, research and skim papers until I find something with those answers, read through it and physically rewrite the paper so I force myself to confront the material, and then repeat
If you're offering, I'd like to hear your "good good" math textbooks. Upper undergraduate or graduate level. The last math textbooks I loved are Apostol's two number theory / complex function books. They're perfect for me. I've been struggling trying to find something I enjoy as much as those.
I highly recommend Thurston's 3 manifolds (I mentioned it elsewhere in this discussion). Strogatz's Nonlinear Dynamics is beautiful imo -- I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to read it. Arnold's ODE book if you've already taken a class/read a book on ODE. Milnor's lecture notes/books. I learned a lot from Lax's lecture notes on functional analysis. I have his book, but haven't read it except for the historical notes. When I was a student, I enjoyed reading Reed & Simon's treatment of unbounded operators, but I am not sure if I am recommending it or not. I also learned a lot from Hirsch & Smale, Introduction to Diff Eq, Dyn Sys and Linear Algebra (1974). The book has been completely rewritten for the 2nd and 3rd editions (with Devaney, and a new title), and I am completely unfamiliar with the newer incarnation.
In a slightly different direction, and perhaps revisiting the elementary topics, a friend whose recommendations I respect highly likes Gelfand's Linear Algebra. He has also recommended Bamberg & Sternberg "A course in mathematics for students of physics" to me multiple times.
Mathematical tastes differ, so take this with a grain of salt.
Thanks very much! I haven't read any of those, although I've heard of some of them. I'll check them all out.
Those sound like great recommendations. Thanks!
Here's a few I've enjoyed,
Fraleigh - A First Course in Abstract Algebra
[It's on the gentle side, not dry, and provides a good elementary foundation]
Kaplansky - Set theory and metric spaces
[This book... The first thing you'll note is that it's less than 150 pages long. It's essentially a highlight reel of the subject's foundation it also touches on many naively interesting concepts, like cardinals and ordinals. If you've never done anything with ZFC set theory, this is a fun, quick place to start]
Ebbinghaus - Mathematical Logic
[After going through this book, I'm not convinced there isn't a better treatment of the subject (Maybe some logicians can weigh in). That said, it's where I learned what Gödel was actually saying, not the confused pop notions.
If you have a good grounding in linear algebra already, you might enjoy
Lax - Linear Algebra and It's Applications
[Note, it's not "applied" in the common sense of the word. Also, if you don't have prior exp. the book will be... rough sailing. My honors prof used this—it was my first exposure—he advised the entire class to not blink while reading less we miss something vitally important]
Enjoy!
I bought Logicomix the day it was released, and loved it all the way through.
Contra you: The math textbooks that I've red are all pretty good and I highly them. Here they are, in ~chronological order of reading:
- Probability and Statistical Inference by Nitis Mukhopadhyay
- A First Course in Linear Model Theory by Nalini Ravishanker and Dipak K. Dey
- Introduction to Time Series and Forecasting (second edition) by Peter J. Rockwell and Richard A. Davis
- Discrete Mathematics by Norman L. Biggs
(My mom's a statistician so that's why there's such an emphasis on statistics, and anyways I'd recommend the middle two much less than the first & last.)
I've been reading Wigderson's Mathematics and Computation recently. It's a bit reference-heavy at times but does a great job giving a general survey of a whole lot of the field of Theoretical Computer Science.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I've been curating a math reading list for a few years, I hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for: https://math.mit.edu/~notzeb/rec.html
I'm glad to see "Visual Complex Analysis" by Needham made your list. I took a graduate class where the professor taught from that book and it was the best math class I ever took, hands down. That book changed my view of what a math textbook could be. Most textbooks refuse to encourage intuition, this book does nothing but.
Thanks for the Needham shout out. I started Penrose's "Road to Reality" last year and got bogged down in chapters 7 (Complex number calculus) and 8 (Rieman surfaces and mappings) Needlam is a referenced by Penrose in chap 7., will it also help me with the Rieman surface? Or something else.
(Physics background. I use complex analysis, but with little deep understanding.)
I really really enjoyed reading Road to Reality a couple of years back. It's a funny book, because you really need to already know most of what is in the book to understand it. What Penrose does is take a lot of complicated mathematical concepts (that the reader is ideally already comfortable with), and give a very hands-on insight into them that textbooks don't necessarily supply. He also of course illuminates connections between them in order to build up the whole edifice of modern Physics.
A good source for Riemannian surfaces is the book by Rick Miranda. Reading perhaps the first chapter of that should suffice for most of what Penrose does
thank you
Thanks for the very comprehensive list!
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Thanks for the recommendation! Is there value in reading these lectures now, if I have already taken undergrad and some grad courses in Physics. Are there a lot of valuable insights in them that regular textbooks don't necessarily supply?
Oh my. Physics type, Yeah Feynman is great. I'll reread these every ~5-10 years. Most of the physics I use is in there. .. not really so good for a first year student. But it's full of insights as to how Feynman saw the world. They are free online from Cal tech.
Ah I see, thanks!
Strongly recommend The Non-Euclidean Revolution by Richard J. Trudeau. Suitable for math undergraduate who never got properly into hyperbolic geometry
Thanks for the recommendation!
A few of us in my hi-tech company did a book club where we worked through a fairly approachable book on Category Theory titled Seven Sketches in Compositionality. Some bits of it were harder going than others but overall it was distinctly enjoyable. (It helps that I love Category Theory pretty much precisely because it spans a lot of different areas of mathematics and finds unexpected connections tying them all together.)
Thanks for the recommendation! I've read some applied category theory on Joan Baez's blog, and didn't get a clear idea of whether using category theory in things like chemical equations, bio systems, etc gives relevant insights that the pre-existing model does not. Does the book address the usefulness of category theory in these domains? I suppose one use could be that we now have a common language to talk about these disparate domains
Andy Weir’s new book, Hail Mary, came out a little while ago. If you enjoyed The Martian you’ll probably enjoy this one too.
Ooh, I did like the martian. Thanks
I really enjoyed _A Distant Mirror_ by Barbara Tuchman, an excellent history of the 14th century. It's not exactly light reading but it is very well written and entertaining (if you like that kind of thing)
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre.
It’s different than your example book because it’s more narrative driven, but otherwise it qualifies as light non-fiction, well-written, and very entertaining. It’s a Cold War spy thriller about a KGB agent who became a double agent for Britain in the 70s and 80s.
sounds interesting, thank you
Semi random author list. (You've probably know some.) Oliver Sachs, E.O. Wilson (I even enjoyed his tome on ants.) James Gleik, R.V. Jones ("Most Secret War", I also liked "instruments and experiences", but it's hard to find.) More physicsy B. Pippard "Physics of Vibration vol I... this is for the experimental type.
Oh and on the same subject, does anyone have a recommendation for a good intro Economics text? Thanks.
I think there's a freely available textbook on the Marginal Revolution website. I think I read the first chapter and it had lots ot helpful illustrations, etc.
If you have any interest in history, then "In The Lion's Court – Power, Ambition and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII" by Derek Wilson. It dates from 2001 so not the very latest scholarship, but it's not too heavy on the history and scholarship side and takes the approach of picking six men named Thomas who revolved around Henry in his court between 1499 to 1549.
"This book tells for the first time the interlocking stories of six Thomases - Wolsey, More, Cromwell, Cranmer, Howard and Wriothesley - who served as close advisers of Henry VIII - and all suffered for it. Two were beheaded, two were disgraced and narrowly avoided execution, one was burned to death and the other probably took his own life. In the Lion's Court is a revelation of just how perilous it was to be close to England's most tyrannical king."
Wilson definitely has his own opinions as to who the goodies and baddies were, but that makes it a light enough read.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. One of the most enjoyable reads of the last year, surprisingly relaxing. It takes multiple interesting approaches to fungi and mycelium. The audiobook is also quite good and read by the author.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/07/what-are-fungi.html
Also a MR review.
Highly recommend “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, which is about a disaster with a guided Mt Everest climb in the 90s. He participated in the climb, reached the summit, and was involved in the attempted rescue of his fellow climbers.
What is the fastest you ever learned 80% a topic? What was the topic? How long did it take you?
How would know able to determine that you've learned 80% of a topic, or indeed 100%, or 50% or any other percentage of a topic?
Did you enable skill XP bar in your HUD setting?
I agree with the other comments about the difficulty of determining how much of a topic you know with that kind of granularity, but I assume you’re referencing the “80% of the topic/skill in 20% of the time and vice versa” idea, which I think has some real value.
I’m a business transactions lawyer. I think I’ve learned 80% of the practical domain of solar generation project M&A, and it took me (i) probably three of my law schools classes (Contracts + Business Organizations + a drafting course), which I’ll cumulate as six months, plus (ii) 2.5 years or so of licensed practice with close mentorship and long working hours. I think the rest of the 80/20 proposition is true, i.e., it would take me another 10-15 years to learn the rest.
By contrast, I’ve been studying piano and composition since I was seven, and I still don’t think I’m 20% there on any measure.
Do you think most of M&A is related to memorizing laws and past court cases? Is something else involved?
Piano seems hard because it combines moving your body with memorization, so you can't strictly memorize key sequences to become good at piano. Do you play any other instrument? Piano is particularly difficult
That would be in the wheelhouse of an M&A litigator, someone who sues or defends about contested M&A transactions. I’m a transactional attorney, so I negotiate and draft M&A transactions - structuring the deals and writing contracts, basically. I say all that because, as opposed to litigators, what I do is all about process, writing skills and speaking skills, and very little about memorization. I think that’s what made it easy to learn quickly. But writing that now, I realize that maybe it’s cheating a bit not to count the many years of practice writing and speaking persuasively that set me up to do transactional work. It would be tough to draw that line for any skill, e.g., if you’re talking about learning a third language, do you have to credit any time spent learning your second language, which probably made the third one a lot quicker? Etc.
I do play several other instruments, and I agree piano might be the hardest in a certain way. What I’ll say about piano, though, is it makes your body think that pressing a button will get you the sound you want. That translates okay to fretted string instruments like guitar or banjo, but it sets you up very poorly for violin, trumpet, or any other instrument that requires you to make the sound with your body much more directly and finely. I think the skill curve for instruments of different families look a lot different for that kind of reason.
What are you learning?
Oh thanks for clarifying. Yeah, writing and speaking probably have spillover effects, although I think those effects in traditional education have been studied and found to be smaller than previously thought.
I'm trying to learn natural language processing right now, and there are tons of steps and tons of decisions to make at each step. Luckily, there isn't a time component like a musical instrument where I have to write things at a certain pace, but the learning curve is steep. I'm trying to figure out if there is a better way than what I am doing now, which is looking at a working model, then reading the documentation on each part until I know what is going on. I think I'll have reached my much hated '80%' mark when I have a taste about which decisions to make and reasons to make those decisions, rather than copying other stuff that already works.
Bon voyage man! Sounds like a very worthwhile effort. Without knowing hardly anything about CS - I have to imagine that what you’re doing (working from a working model, reading documentation on each piece) is the best and most efficient way to go about it. Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that lends itself to watching lectures or some other way of learning.
One way I like to approach a new topic is to find a good undergrad text on the topic, and then read it like a novel.... not worrying if parts of it are confusing.
That's interesting. Do you think you retain very much of the material from reading, or do you take notes? What textbook did you read and why?
Years ago someone in an SSC open thread asked me for the best paper on educational fadeout effects, and in particular the (false imo) claim that they are a measurement artifact. I wasn't really satisfied with the papers that I could point them to at the time, but here's something new and better: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7787577/
Fair warning it's over 40 pages but lots of great stuff; I like the consideration of methods and measurement effects best. (reposted)
My cryptocurrency hedge fund is looking to hire an engineer. PM me if you're interested. Small team + very high potential upside.
Highlights:
* Fully quantitative price prediction and trading (we don't do MM or exchange arbitrage)
* Our returns are uncorrelated to crypto market (pure alpha)
* One of the few funds to offer a BTC share product (we make people more BTC)
* We have been raising additional capital crazy fast this year due to our stellar performance.
Two of the co-founders (me + Satvik Beri) are long term EAs. I've personally donated $$ to MIRI + CFAR way back in 2012-2014. I was also a co-founder of Arbital, in case you heard of it. ;)
We have two fully remote positions: one is for 5+ years of experience, another for 7+ years.
I'm a bit hesitant to add any other requirements, since we mostly just look for smart engineers who get shit done and who would be excited to work with us.
Tech stack: Python + Julia, AWS
I'm friends-of-friends with Alexei and Satvik and can vouch for them being good people.
Thank you! 🙏
Is there a way to PM on Substack? Clicking the email option on your profile doesn't lead to something that looks formatted correctly.
So I sent you a message over LinkedIn, does that work?
Hmm, not sure why the email wouldn’t work. Are there settings for it?
But yeah LinkedIn works.
Hey, I'm a longtime reader (thanks for all the great content Scott!) but just made an account upon seeing this. I'm super interested in quant trading stuff, only have about a year of industry experience (in software development and data analytics), but 2+ years working with a startup and in labs, and I've been playing with algo trading since high school. B.S. in mathematics. I know this is a long shot, but let me know if you'd be willing to consider me!
Quite possible if your algo skills are strong enough to pass our interview. Feel free to email me: my first name at temple dot capital
Crypto, Julia, UIUC grad, and follows rationalist bloggers—what a rare find.
I'm not in a position to change jobs at just this moment; may I contact you when that changes?
Haha, sure thing!
Late to the game, but I'm another UIUC grad, though I work in R. :(
Feel free to send me you resume: my first name @ temple dot capital
I'm already employed as a research economist. I just feel some affinity to UIUC. But, if you ever have an interest in talking about regulation or working with a university based research group, let me know. This is me: https://www.williamrinehart.com/
hi there alexei, do you have any other way of getting in touch? i might be interested, but do not see any email on your profile (maybe it's a subscriber-only feature?) and do not use linkedin.
my first name at temple dot capital
Does anyone have a theory as to why thinking about philosophy or other high level concepts can actually feel physically heady? Why does galaxy braining feel this way?
I think this might be what's more commonly known as "insight porn" (the name itself basically explains why it feels heady), unless what you mean by "philosophy or other high level concepts" is much more general.
Does "insight porn" as a phrase imply that the topic has little or no content? I looked it up in urban dictionary and it's defined there as sortof cheap tricks of the "theory of everything" variety, reading with no actual learning going on.
> I looked it up in urban dictionary
As of when I last checked it (at https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Insight%20Porn), here's only one entry for "insight porn", written by "metamusoul". And anyways I wouldn't trust urban dictionary that much.
Also, related: https://mindlevelup.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/insight-porn/
Thank you for the definitions. That "insight porn" exists makes sense. By definition there are other experiences of thought that are not insight porn. I expect that there may be experiences or sensations associated with multiple types of thought.
Ha maybe but idk if it's really an exciting feeling. Just like, spacey and removed from my body when thinking about how wild it is that there's anything at all. Maybe it's just an emotion I haven't named.