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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

#251

Post by nfw2 »

nerdponx wrote: post #215
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.

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.

You actually do have a right to that, and to suggest otherwise is a much worse stance on public policy than someone incorrectly describing a quarter's GDP growth.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#252

Post by jazzyjackson »

bko wrote: post #240
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…

Why did vibes take over from "gut feeling" I wonder

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#253

Post by the_optimist »

lmm wrote: post #196
the_optimist wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ID check is productive at 1) registration - ensure eligibility and 2) at ballot casting - ensure the voter is registered and unique. The match will inherently enumerate voters. Your outside assumptions that a) id requirements disenfranchise voters and b) official collusion is the “only way” are structurally and by evidence unfounded. In your argument they provide only hand-wavy service for an otherwise unsupporte…

> The ID check is productive at 1) registration - ensure eligibility and 2) at ballot casting - ensure the voter is registered and unique. How does checking an ID ensure eligibility better than what's already done? And similarly for ballot casting - how would IDs make a better uniqueness/registration check than what we have? > a) id requirements disenfranchise voters and b) official collusion is the “only way” are st…

There is little-to-zero validation or uniqueness check currently, and there are near-zero verifiable data points. We can count envelopes/ballots and eyeball signatures, and there is batch-level attachment between the two. Everything else is “trust me bro”-level security, relying on the assumption of a non-existent high-security environment.

Papers referring to voter ID disenfranchisement rest almost entirely on address-field-correctness deficiency (people move), which is a minimal problem other fields requiring human resolution.

To nurture your aside: People who achieve things identify the factual and structural nature of problems. Articulation is a scale factor. Good luck!

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#254

Post by slices »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #79
alexashka wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The information landscape is heavily weighted towards these grifters, and I am not sure how we can fix that. We can start with not alienating the millions of people who enjoy listening to Joe Rogan and like him as a person. What do you even mean by grifter and how is Joe Rogan a grifter? We can go back and forth on here until you are shown to have a very shallow understanding of Joe Rogan and the history of his pod…

Joe Rogan has a platform because he will allow any idiot on his show and just babble about whatever it is they want to talk about. He's not a journalist, he's a 3 hour ad placement masquerading as a podcast. Lex Friedman is even worse because he gives the impression that he's an intellectual but he plays the same game. At least you know going in that Rogan behaves like a meathead.

a guy with a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, who then worked for years at MIT, isn't an intellectual?

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#255

Post by toyg »

lmm wrote: post #230
toyg wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's made up of humans who are unlikely to be 100% loyal to their boss If true, that obviously cuts both ways. But really I think you're just being paranoid and somehow biased against state employees - who are definitely not all "blue" by any stretch, particularly in red states. If you really think any low-level minion, or even middle-manager apparatchik, will risk their jobs by substantially fiddling numbers again…

> If true, that obviously cuts both ways. It does, but ultimately it adds up to a drift towards what a typical government employee would want to do rather than what the elected representatives decided - and government employees are not a representative sample of voters. > If you really think any low-level minion, or even middle-manager apparatchik, will risk their jobs by substantially fiddling numbers against the wi…

As you say yourself, those things are typically bullshit anyway (mostly targeted at disenfranchising minorities), and they're definitely not something that can substantially and continuously influence a presidential election in a single direction in a country of 400millions.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#256

Post by nailer »

nailer wrote: post #225
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…

If you purchased Solana at that point and held it, or purchased it during that crash, you would be very happy now.

(I should probably point out that I’m copying the language of the parent here ‘buying Solana’ is like ‘buying Linux’ - the parent means buying SOL.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#257

Post by selimthegrim »

slices wrote: post #254
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joe Rogan has a platform because he will allow any idiot on his show and just babble about whatever it is they want to talk about. He's not a journalist, he's a 3 hour ad placement masquerading as a podcast. Lex Friedman is even worse because he gives the impression that he's an intellectual but he plays the same game. At least you know going in that Rogan behaves like a meathead.

a guy with a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, who then worked for years at MIT, isn't an intellectual?

How involved was his daddy in getting that PhD?

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#258

Post by selimthegrim »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #12
voisin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. In 2016 it was fair to be shocked that he meant what he said literally rather than figuratively in a crass manner of getting elected. I think everyone expected he would cut to the middle once elected, as he was a New York democrat for his whole life. But in 2024 we now know that when he says something he means it.

I will firmly admit, that in the 2015 primaries I thought he was the lesser of 2 evils between him and Ted Cruz. I will absolutely state that I was foolish and wrong. That's not happening again.

Cruz was bought and paid for by Christian theocrats, while Trump seemed more human and relatable/tolerable at the time.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#259

Post by nerdponx »

nfw2 wrote: post #251
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.

You actually do have a right to that, and to suggest otherwise is a much worse stance on public policy than someone incorrectly describing a quarter's GDP growth.

Freedom (such as free speech) has always been limited by harm caused to others. Or do you suggest that we somehow impose a Pigouvian tax on letting people lie to you for "entertainment"?

Let's also be clear: the people crying "it's entertainment stop taking it so seriously!" are probably just unwilling to admit that they didn't realize they were being lied to. This is a common phenomenon.

Re: Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

#260

Post by nerdponx »

vekker wrote: post #222
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.

Problem is, the legacy media is confidently wrong about all kinds of matters too, all the time. Why would they have the right to broadcast misinformation, and popular podcasters not? The answer to this isn't censorship. It's in education and teaching people to think critically.

If you are being lied to, then the liars are at fault. If you know that you are being lied to and keep on listening without at least increasing your level of skepticism, then you are a collaborator and an enabler and a public-information-well-poisoner.

I maintain that you should not get a free pass to consume bullshit just because you personally find it entertaining, regardless of whether it comes from CNN or a podcast or a Tiktok account.

Libertarians might recognize this as the "harm principle" that they so often like to talk about, and then conveniently ignore when it doesn't turn out to align with the political right wing.

I am not saying anything about what we as a society should do about it. I have no idea what we should do about it. Attempting to censor all liars sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen, for example.

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