Writes Slow Boring, a near-daily newsletter on American politics and public policy; co-founded Vox in 2014 and left it in 2020.
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Their wordsResources that are currently dedicated to A.I. would not otherwise sit idle.
Their wordsI think it's now pretty widely agreed in safety circles that total openness is in fact not desirable.
Their wordsOnly a safe, well-aligned superintelligence developed in the world of liberal democracies could entrench liberal-democratic values.
Their wordsWe have always known that recursive self-improvement is dangerous.
Their wordsIf Bush had wanted to whip people up into an inward-looking demagogic fervor instead of an external-facing one, he clearly could have accomplished that, too.
Their wordsI think appreciation of the contingency starts with observing that the whole idea of hijacking airplanes in order to destroy the World Trade Center is eccentric.
Their wordsIt's on some levels obvious that we are all very much living in a world that Osama bin Laden made.
Their wordsThe real story of Hitler's rise is mostly a history of contingency - bad choices by specific influential politicians first wrecked the German economy and then handed power to Hitler.
Their wordsBut I think this impulse to gild the lily and attribute the rise of Hitler to deep intellectual trends is an example of a pretty common fallacy of assuming that an incredibly important world event must have incredibly important roots.
Their wordsI think a huge failure mode for progressive politics is looking at a difficult problem like climate change that can only be addressed through a mix of hard international coordination problems and hard technical problems, only to decide that it's really just a political question of beating the fossil fuel industry.
Their wordsWe have to stand up to the ideological golems in order to rescue our political discourse
Their wordsAnd I think it’s more toxic than generally realized to make symbolic concessions that undermine the legitimacy of the national community.
Mental modelTrade-offs
Their wordsBut under conditions of contemporary partisanship, a risk you take to expand access to health care is a drag on efforts to secure abortion rights or address climate change or help the poor.
Their wordsI noted at the time that it seemed like a team that would lead the country into war with Iran and then hedged with the observation that presidents sometimes surprise us. So far so good! What I didn’t do in the piece was dwell on the idea at any length, which is too bad because I was right about the team of super-hawks and this seems to have kind of wrecked Trump’s presidency.
Their wordsBut having watched both the George W. Bush and second Trump presidencies unfold, I think it’s because Republicans have systematically bad foreign policy that is inattentive to the downside risk of saber-rattling and hawkishness.
Their wordsBut… Republicans have systematically bad foreign policy that is inattentive to the downside risk of saber-rattling and hawkishness….
Their wordsbut they’re also aware that a Democratic administration can’t conclude agreements that will stick.
Their wordsBut the school was still a well-run, happy place for our child, who learned to navigate a much broader range of social interactions than if we’d sent him to school only with other affluent children, and the presence of a critical mass of affluent, educated, engaged parents I think made a real difference in the lives of the teachers and the students.
Their wordsBut the actual details of schools that serve high-need populations vary quite a lot, and it’s worth both engaging with the specifics of your local situation and thinking about the general policy questions.
Their wordsPublic schools only work if people with financial and social capital participate.
Their wordsThe problem is that it’s hard to find examples of the betting markets doing much more than processing the polling data as it comes in.
Their wordsSo we’re left, for now at least, with what seems to me like an efficient processor of public information and a good index of conventional wisdom but not necessarily a source of fresh insights.
Their wordsAll you really need to do to be sporadically competitive in blue states is just apply that exact same formula to an electorate where the median voter is more left-wing.
Their wordsNonetheless, if we’re disciplined about it, we can discern specific candidate effects — they are real and they’re important.
Their wordsThe ideal profile for a statewide Democratic candidate in Texas would be a Hispanic moderate from South Texas.
Their wordsThis serves to rationalize all kinds of scumbag behavior when the simple truth is that Romney — or some other honorable and decent person — could easily have won if he had Trump’s views on Social Security and Medicare.
Their wordsAnd the broader Title IX fight is a classic left/right political battle, where conservatives just want to shrink opportunities and funding for girls' sports.
Their wordsAmerica has made unusually large investments in athletic opportunities for girls and it pays off.
Their wordsPromoting women's sports is and always has been a progressive cause.