Week Commencing 17 July 2023
Blog Post - Blood Diamonds and the Lottery of Earth (Brian Klaas)
Fascinating stuff, I am frequently amazed by how much of human history is shaped by geography and geology. Origins by Lewis Dartnell is an eye-opening book with many similar revelations. My favourite example is how the recurring ‘blue swoosh’ of Democratic voters in the traditionally Republican deep south was a result of the tragedy of slavery combined with millennia of geological processes. The story goes like this:
100 million years ago in the Cretaceous period, North America as we know it today was split up into multiple parts. The ‘blue swoosh’ lines up with where an ancient coastline used to be. Today’s ‘deep-south’ was therefore largely underwater, where trillions of phytoplankton proliferated and photosynthesized. When the phytoplankton died, they sank to the seafloor and were incorporated into the bedrock, creating a layer of chalk. Over subsequent eras, the water receded and this chalk decomposed into a fertile, nutrient-rich soil (the Black Belt).
The soil proved extremely conducive to growing cotton, and the booming cotton trade in modern America was concentrated across the black belt. When slavery took hold, a disproportionate number of African Americans were therefore placed along the black belt in cotton plantations and forced to pick cotton for 18 hour days. This fertile soil combined with free labour meant more and more slaves were brought to this region.
After the 13th amendment in 1865 which emancipated slaves, a large proportion of the black population of the US remained where they were in the southern black belt, even today, partly due to not knowing where else to go nor having the means to go elsewhere. Since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, descendants of slavery who live in the deep south finally got the right to vote, and because black communities on average tend to vote democratically, this results in the recurring ‘blue swoosh’ phenomenon.
Here's a thread from Latif Nasser that explains it much better with pictures...
This article is another brilliant tale of history being written by our environment, here focusing on the proportion of emancipated slaves who moved back to West Africa and became known as ‘Americo-Liberians’, who found themselves the victims of yet another combination of geography, geology, and Western atrocities. It makes me think how many modern parts of life have been influenced by completely unforeseen factors developing over millennia. It also brings home how wide-ranging and long-lasting the impacts of the slave trade are.
Frankly I’m not surprised that the ad agency behind the diamond propaganda campaign was the same one that convinced young, naïve, impressionable men to join the army. Despite almost everyone knowing how entirely awful and bullshit De Beers and the diamond industry is, it is unfortunate that it’s still a deeply ingrained part of life, however I take some solace in seeing how quickly lab-grown diamonds have been taking off as a viable and seemingly ethical alternative.
Video - Why Oppenheimer Deserves His Own Movie (Veritasium)
Veritasium makes some of the most compelling Youtube videos in existence. This one is no exception. Beyond excited to see Oppenheimer at the IMAX.
Article - How Podcaster Andrew Huberman Got America to Care About Science (Time)
Podcast - E138: Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in conversation with the Besties (All In)
Week Commencing 10 July 2023
Essay - How to Do Great Work (Paul Graham)
Without question the best thing I’ve read all year. I wish I could have read this 8 years ago when I started my career… Read it ASAP
Book - The Case Against Reality (Donald Hoffman)
I have a lot of thoughts about this one. Review coming soon.
Blog Post - The Case for Immigration (Erik Torenberg)
Podcast - Andy Matuschak - Self-Teaching, Spaced Repetition, Why Books Don’t Work (Dwarkesh Patel)
Article - Nvidia in talks to be an anchor investor in Arm IPO (FT)
It’s pretty clear at this point that Nvidia is going to take over the world, right? I saw a Citi analyst suggest that Nvidia will have >90% market share of AI chips which is insane. To be clear, nobody should ever listen to anything that equity research analysts say, ever, but it’s clear that the majority of the initial value creation from the AI boom is a giant pass through to Nvidia.
Blog Post - Grading the economic schools of thought (Noahpinion)
Blog Post - Medical A.I. is on a tear (Eric Topol)
Week Commencing 3 July 2023
Restaurant - Humo
Went to Humo for my mum’s birthday this weekend. The concept is that the kitchen has no gas or electricity - just wood and fire. Run by Colombian Miller Prada, protégé of Endo Kazutoshi who was on display at the centre of the kitchen all night. We went for the tasting menu which was exceptional, but what made it even better was the service and being able to watch Miller Prada and his team cook the food in front of us and interact with us throughout the night. Highlights were the lamb and all the desserts. Could not recommend this place enough and I’m certain it will get a Michelin star in no time.
Article - How a Swedish start-up reignited the search for an Alzheimer’s drug (FT)
A great primer on the state of Alzheimer’s research.
Article - 19 thoughts on affirmative action (Slow Boring)
Last week’s All-In podcast also had some good discussion on this, particularly Friedberg’s take on the importance of separating equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes. I also think it’s worth reading Erik Torenberg’s piece which does a good job in articulating the arguments and rounding up the discussion. I’ve always been sceptical of most affirmative action initiatives I’ve heard about in the US which don’t really treat the underlying roots of discrimination. The most patronising of which is the NFL’s Rooney Rule which mandates that every team must interview at least two external minority candidates for open head coaching positions and at least one external minority candidate for a coordinator job. Turns out it doesn’t work, but importantly it achieves the noble goal of letting the NFL pat themselves on the back for ending racism. IMO that’s where most of these initiatives fail, they are more about virtue signalling and collecting badges in the form of DEI statistics rather than making actual progress towards meritocracy. I feel the same way about the largely superficial motivations behind putting a black tile on your Instagram or changing your logo during pride month, it’s signalling all the way down.
TV Show - The Bear Season 2
This show didn’t need a second season. The first was a perfect, self-contained run that had incredibly storytelling and a unique way of building suspense and chaos. I went into season 2 expecting to be let down but somehow they managed to pull off two back to back seasons of perfection. Season 2 takes a completely different strategy and almost feels like a different show, this time focusing more on the ensemble cast and building rich backstories and stepping away from the high-octane kitchen shenanigans. I said a similar thing about Succession in that you don’t feel like you’re watching characters in a TV show, it feels like we’re observing genuine people, which was no more evident than in Episode 6 which was an incredible and uncomfortable hour of brilliance. Even when the show takes long detours with side-characters like the adventures of Marcus in Copenhagen, it is still gripping and doesn’t ever feel like filler. My one criticism is that the entire Clare arc felt shallow and unnecessary all the way to its fairly obvious conclusion. It stood out as a low point in the otherwise exceptional writing of the show and amidst some great character building in this season, Clare just felt like a forgettable plot device. Overall, I could not recommend this show enough and while I left Season 1 feeling like it should end on a high, I leave Season 2 excited to see what comes next.
Article - Al-Idrisi and Roger’s Book
I could go down cartography rabbit holes forever…
Also: Tabula Rogeriana: The First Great Atlas
Also: A Wonder of the Multicultural Medieval World: The Tabula Rogeriana
Week Commencing 19 June 2023
Book - Drugs and the FDA (Amazon)
In my post In Defence of Popular Science, I mentioned that one of the most compelling types of non-fiction is intimate, first-hand accounts of events that you can only get from someone who was directly involved. Some great examples are Bad Blood and Dead in the Water, where we follow the journey that the journalists went through in exposing a grand conspiracy. In Drugs and the FDA we go directly to the source as Mikkael A. Sekeres recounts the Avastin hearings, in which he served on the Oncological Drugs Advisory Committee, in a way that reads like a medical thriller. Between the narrative, he takes detours to give the reader a history and overview of the FDA and the anatomy of clinical trials to further contextualise this landmark case. The fine line between patient safety, medical research, and access to experimental drugs is a super interesting one that will only get even more contentious as technology advances. I would recommend supplementing this book with From Oversight to Overkill - some of the stories in there will make you want to pull your hair out, check out Scott Alexander’s review for a TL;DR. For even more context, listen from 3hrs 25m. I learned a lot from this book and it has given me a ton of jumping off points and further questions to interrogate.
Blog Post - Stump the Medical Expert or GPT-4? (Ground Truths)
I’ve become quite disappointed with a lot of the clickbait about GPT-4 in medicine. It started with the JAMA study about doctor empathy which was one of the absolute worst things that somehow got published, yet people who presumably didn’t actually read the paper were posting sensationalised headlines about how CHATGPT OUTPERFORMS DOCTORS IN PATIENT EMPATHY. Here is a much more balanced review of a more interesting set of results that give some optimism for the role of LLMs in the very real problem of misdiagnosis.
Podcast - Huberman Lab: Tim Ferris (Youtube)
Andrew Huberman never misses. I must admit I am one of the very few people who isn’t a huge fan of Tim Ferris. I read the 4-Hour Work Week and thought it was genuinely awful. To this day, I can never understand how it seems to be a life-changing book for so many. Having said that, I loved this conversation and now think maybe I missed out by not listening to Tim’s podcast over the years. There’s so much good stuff in this marathon episode that I will probably revisit it at some point.
The Ashes - First Test
Is there anything better than test cricket? I don’t think it’s worth criticising the first innings declaration or suddenly overanalysing the Bazball approach - if England won we’d all be calling Ben Stokes a genius. England’s approach to test cricket is churning out quality games that are making test cricket the spectacle it deserves to be. This is the most excited I’ve been for an Ashes series in a very long time.
Article - Time for a Change: How Scientific Publishing is Changing For The Better (The Seeds of Science)
Podcast - All In E134: Ukraine counteroffensive, China tensions, COVID Patient Zero, RFK Jr reaction & more (Youtube)
Bilbao
Went on a family holiday to Bilbao over the weekend and could not recommend the place enough. It’s a perfect weekend destination since you can do pretty much everything in two days. Highlights include:
Vizcaya Bridge - the first bridge in the world to carry people and traffic on a high suspended gondola. Would recommend taking an elevator to the top and walking across for insane views of Bilbao
Gure Toki and El Globo for the best pintxos in Bilbao hands down. The basque cheesecake at Gure Toki is now on my death row meal
Guggenheim Museum - Not a huge art guy but this was a must-see in Bilbao and the exhibitions were pretty good (also see the big puppy and the spider nearby)
Food tour - We did this food tour which was really fun with loads of pintxos and wine and basque cider, though it was slightly overpriced and you can probably do it yourself for much cheaper
Mercado de La Ribera - Most of it was closed when we went but still a great place for food and drink
Week Commencing 12 June 2023
Blog Post - The UFO craze was created by government nepotism and incompetent journalism (The Intrinsic Perspective)
Erik Hoel is an insta-read for me, even when he's giving me a hard dose of reality after getting irrationally excited about disclosure. As much as I desperately want to believe everything that Grusch says, it's pretty clearly total bullshit without a shred of evidence.
Podcast - Lex Fridman - Daniel Negreanu (Youtube)
This is an older one that I only just got around to watching. Always amazing to see masters of their craft waxing philosophical. I would recommend watching this back to back with the Magnus Carlsen episode. I don't follow poker all that much so was super interested to learn how much modern engines have infiltrated the game. Surprised that it's this significant in an imperfect information game.
Article - India’s diaspora is bigger and more influential than any in history (The Economist)
While this makes me happy, I am concerned for the future of India when 36% of the 1,000 top IIT performers migrate abroad. It doesn’t bode well when the best the country has to offer is leaving, particularly if India wants to position itself to be a leader in technology - “Another study looked at the top 20% of researchers in artificial intelligence (defined as those who had papers accepted for a competitive conference in 2019). It found that 8% did their undergraduate degree in India. But the share of top researchers that now work in India is so small that the researchers did not even record it.”
Podcast - The Always Sunny in Philadelphia Podcast (Youtube)
‘Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens’ is one of my top 5 Sunny episodes so this was great, even though they barely spoke about it... From the first two episodes of season 16 it looks like the guys have their mojo back and have rediscovered what made the early episodes so great. This show is a masterclass on how not to jump the shark.
Book - The AI Revolution in Medicine (Amazon)
A broad and accessible introduction to the promise and peril of generative AI in medicine, but I kept feeling like it only scratched the surface of some really interesting topics before jumping onto the next one. I guess it is to be expected when the technology has only been out for a limited time, but I was hoping for more given the backgrounds of the authors. Felt quite superficial and dumbed down at times which was disappointing, though if you look at it as a primer to start the conversation about gen AI in medicine, which will no doubt be a long and complicated one, it sets the scene quite nicely. I also think that aiming this book at less techy doctors who are coming to grips with what AI might mean for their lives would be beneficial. The main takeaway for me was that at least in the near-term, the big win will be in alleviating the paperwork and admin burden that healthcare professionals spend an inordinate amount of time on, but there is a danger that money gets poured into systems that clinicians don’t actually use. Something tells me that bureaucracy and over-regulation is going to limit the scope of what AI can do in medicine for at least a couple of years.
Blog Post - Your Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning (Astral Codex Ten)
I've been meaning to write a review of Man’s Search for Meaning for a long time as it's one of the very few books that have had a profound effect on my life. This review is better than anything I could have written so instead I'll just recommend it (if you can get past the constant ‘dear reader’). I've tried CBT a number of times and it never clicked for me, I think GPs should start prescribing this book instead.
Article - WTC final: Why has India stopped winning ICC tournaments? (BBC News)
Pain.
Show - Penn and Teller at the Eventim Apollo
I’ve wanted to see Penn and Teller live for so long and they did not disappoint. Would recommend this to absolutely everyone. I’m astounded by their ability to do this for fifty years and still be at the top of their game.
Blog Post - The Canal Papers (Astral Codex Ten)
It’s cheating to post Scott Alexander here, but he knocks it out the park every time. I’ve always found the concept of a general factor of psychopathology (a potential commonality across different mental health conditions) enticing and canalisation seems like an interesting lens, as is overfitting and underfitting.
TV Show - Black Mirror Season 6 (Netflix)
Been waiting forever for this one. I’ve only watched the first episode, and while I get what it was going for, something about it fell flat with me. I normally like when shows get meta and the concept is one that I’m glad we saw Charlie Brooker’s take on because deepfakes and AI generated content will no doubt become a part of our lives, but this felt a like it missed the mark.
—- SPOILER ALERT —-
Joan is Awful - The almost-children’s-TV-show ridiculous hijinkery of Salma Hayek and Annie Murphy sneaking into Streamberry’s offices and destroying a quantum computer with an axe (I mean come on, really?) cheapened what could have been a pretty unique exploration of the theme. Having said that, Annie Murphy and Michael Cera were fantastic. The highlight was seeing this comment on Reddit - “I hate to say this but a man of Indian descent cooking bland food was the most unbelievable thing in a black mirror episode”
Update:
Loch Henry - Exceptional, one of the best episodes in a while. Didn’t feel like a typical Black Mirror episode at all, which wasn’t a bad thing. I loved everything about it. The final scenes really hit home the callousness of the true crime genre and how we all excitedly devour entertainment at the expense of the very real victims. Charlie Brooker is not holding back in his not-so-thinly-veiled criticism of Netflix in these first two episodes.
Beyond the Sea - Another great episode. Probably top 10 in the whole catalogue. It’s one of the only episodes this season that felt like it stuck to the original premise of Black Mirror. One of my favourite things about this show is the way it presents ideas that fill you with a sense of existential dread when you think about them for too long (e.g. White Christmas). This does a good job of doing exactly that, particularly when you have to fill in the blanks of what happens next after the ending. I forgot how brilliant Aaron Paul is.
Mazey Day - Utter garbage. “Wouldn’t it be so random if we made a really shitty version of Nightcrawler and chucked in a werewolf out of nowhere???”
Demon 79 - I liked this one overall. It proved that having some sort of supernatural element wasn’t the reason I hated Mazey Day, because it can be done in an entertaining way that doesn’t take away from the story. Again, it doesn’t have the standard Black Mirror elements but I guess by now Charlie Brooker is trying to move a little bit away from the now overdone “WHAT IF TECHNOLOGY WENT TOO FAR” trope while still telling unique stories.