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Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

passingtime.substack.com

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Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#231

Post by rikkert »

tomcam wrote: post #227
digdugdirk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself. It really shows how difficult it is for the human mind to have perspective on itself.

> It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself. For example?

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a prominent example of climate science denial wrapped in a techno-thriller narrative. In the book, he portrays mainstream climate science as alarmist and driven by political motives rather than factual evidence. Crichton uses the plot to imply that climate change fears are exaggerated, fueled by a coalition of media, scientists, and activists with hidden agendas. Despite claiming to be based on scientific data, the book misrepresents studies, cherry-picks data, and cites outlier opinions to undermine the overwhelming consensus on human-caused climate change. The novel’s presentation has been criticized for promoting misinformation and distorting the complexities of climate science to fit a skeptical narrative.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#232

Post by r0fl »

senkora wrote: post #43

The one that I always remember is how they shilled for Solana immediately before it crashed hard. (I have never had any position in any crypto) I feel like their show has an implicit subtext where you’re expected to understand when they are lying. You get to feel smart by recognizing when they’re just talking their book. The tricky question is whether there is any value in the podcast besides understanding their book…

I think the value is just entertainment. Any advice they give should be taken with a grain of salt

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#233

Post by greenie_beans »

rikkert wrote: post #231
tomcam wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself. For example?

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a prominent example of climate science denial wrapped in a techno-thriller narrative. In the book, he portrays mainstream climate science as alarmist and driven by political motives rather than factual evidence. Crichton uses the plot to imply that climate change fears are exaggerated, fueled by a coalition of media, scientists, and activists with hidden agendas. Despite claiming t…

that actually makes sense that he'd write that book if he's going around talking about gell-mann in interviews

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#234

Post by greenie_beans »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #83
FigurativeVoid wrote: post #67

When the pandemic started, I really enjoyed the podcast. They seemed to have some good insights, and I found them funny. It was a vibe that I sorely missed being home alone. If one them sees this, I hope they take it kindly. The podcast has gone downhill drastically. The level of discourse has dropped considerably. They make all sorts of claims with very little evidence. Recently they have all agreed that voter ID la…

Recently they have all agreed that voter ID laws "just make sense." But they don't even bring up any of the unpleasant history around IDs. This year is the 80th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, do they really need to go through the history of IDs? We need to rebuild confidence in the integrity of elections, Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems like an incredibly modest step…

protecting the VRA is still relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#235

Post by gizmo »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #54

Incidentally: Chamath plays a fair amount of high stakes poker recreationally, including on various streams and/or filmed poker content. I forget if it was on twitter or a Reddit AMA or what, but he once gave a blurb about what he had learned playing the game for some time, and he said something to the effect of "Poker is a fundamentally defensive game", which is an absurd statement. There is no strategic bias toward…

With investing you can make 1000x your money if you bet right. Your returns are determined by your best bets. You can be spewy and it doesn't matter much. Or you can wait for aces and then bet big. It's up to you.

With poker it's not like that. Blinds force you to play mediocre hands and make bets when you're weak. Minimizing your losses with correct play is essential, otherwise you'll bleed out. You can only make money in poker when your opponent makes mistakes (good opponents don't make many) but you can lose money in every hand you play. That's why it's a defensive game.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#236

Post by NoBeardMarch »

braza wrote: post #221
nerdponx wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being confidently wrong about matters of public policy in front of a large audience is more than just an incidental bad take. It pollutes the public well of information and thereby does a disservice to society. You do not have a right to entertain yourself with something that damages the ability of society to make decisions and govern itself.

People in this “large audience” are listening voluntarily to a bunch of guys talking about similar interest points. Some of those points they will have credibility others no; and that’s the beauty of to live in an almost free information society. The problem with the “something that damages the ability of society to make decisions” it’s with who establishes that and what’s the self correct mechanism those institution…

> The problem with the “something that damages the ability of society to make decisions” it’s with who establishes that and what’s the self correct mechanism those institutions that establishes that has.

You seem to imply that this is some metaphysical discussion on the nature of "truth" itself or who gets to be the arbiter of that - but I feel this is a dishonest digression here. Yes, truth can never be truly established - but both you and I know that Chamath's take on All-In for this particular claim was clearly false.

I agree with the poster you replied to. I guess you have a point in that there is no law that can tell Chamath to shut up and only open his mouth when he is talking about something with high confidence - but when you are speaking to a large audience on matters of economic policy with some implications as to what people believe then YES - you have a responsibility! The punishment to which breaking it should be (for people with a huge outreach like Chamath) being shamed online for it. People should learn the fact that Chamath is a man who chronically opines constantly about things he has no basis for having an opinion on. He is a chronic borderline liar.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#237

Post by tomcam »

rikkert wrote: post #231
tomcam wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself. For example?

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a prominent example of climate science denial wrapped in a techno-thriller narrative. In the book, he portrays mainstream climate science as alarmist and driven by political motives rather than factual evidence. Crichton uses the plot to imply that climate change fears are exaggerated, fueled by a coalition of media, scientists, and activists with hidden agendas. Despite claiming t…

Thanks. I read the book and feel he’ll be proven largely correct. Won’t relitigate here but I very much appreciate your reply.

It was one of his worst books but not due to his evaluation of the science world. Just way too heavy-handed. He usually had a far lighter touch.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#238

Post by jmyeet »

tmn wrote: post #188
Lord-Jobo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His first point was sourced with evidence, something every single one of these "believers" has failed to produce, time and time again .

I don't have a horse in this race. I just think it's easy to find stuff online to back whatever you want to back. https://electionfraud.heritage.org/ Is the above site BS?

> Is the above site BS?

Yes and no. Mostly yes [1].

The first thing to note is that it comes from the Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 [2] comes form the Heritage Foundation. Trump's 3 Supreme Court nominees were chosen from a Heritage Foundation list [3][4]. The Heritage Foundation is largely responsible folr the 50 year Republican project to turn the USA into (quite literally) a white theocracy.

Now that doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong. it's just like a reverse appeal to authority fallacy. But you should be immediately skeptical and scrutinize everything they say because there is obvious and historic bias.

Nobody, including myself, has calimed there is zero voter fraud. There are isolated cases and that's impossible to prevent. Interestingly, if you look into those individual cases, it's largely right-leaning people doing things like being registered in two states and voting twice or filling in their ailing parents' absentee ballots.

So the Heritage Foundation is just blowing isolated cases of voter fraud to imply it's a widespread problem in order to push an agenda aimed at voter suppression.

[1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/peop...

[2]: https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FUL...

[3]: https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/cre...

[4]: https://www.heritage.org/impact/supreme-court-nominee-brett-...

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#239

Post by lm28469 »

nfw2 wrote: post #181

I think part of All-In's success is that it has the vibe of a group of friends sitting around and shooting the breeze. It's way less academic than something like the Ezra Klein Show, but that's the point. Is there bloviating involved? All the time, especially from Chamath. Are there bad takes? Certainly. But it's entertaining.

> I think part of All-In's success is that it has the vibe of a group of friends sitting around and shooting the breeze.

imho that's the dangerous part, same with Rogan, it's mostly for entertainment but they slowly lost that part and somehow gained authority. Now you have stuff like Musk saying absurd shit such as: animal farming has 0 impact on the greenhouse effect "because you can't measure it" even though you very well can measure it. It's like getting stoned with your bros on a friday night and discussing the world and politics but they have XX millions of view

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#240

Post by bko »

newfocogi wrote: post #20

In this age of endless expertise, it's easy to be fooled into thinking someone is a true authority until you hear them speak on a topic you know well. There's a certain thrill in getting a glimpse behind the curtain, seeing the man (or woman) behind the rhetoric. While I tell myself that 40% of what they say is just made up or misinterpreted, I can't help but keep listening, captivated by the illusion of insight. Eve…

I think vibes are underrated. The smart people can easily mislead you because they're smart. So you can cover things up with "official statistics", maliciously or by accident.

For instance, inflation is a big one. I remember during the first spike in inflation (2021 I believe), I started nothing prices have gone up between 25-50%. We've been told at the time inflation was something like 7% but that would mean paying $5.35 for something that used to cost $5, which was obviously not what was happening. In short, they play games with the numbers.

Bezos was on Fridman talking about something similar. He learned that Amazon’s metrics said typical wait time less than 1 min to reach customer service. But everyone complained about how long it took. So in a meeting he called Amazon’s customer service line and was put on hold for over 10 minutes, far exceeding the promised wait time. He stated, “When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."

All in goes off vibes and try to tie it to reality but sometimes miss the mark. But I think the vibes are often more right than the data.

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