Best of Twitter - Week of August 16, 2021 [2/2]

Aug 22, 2021

Christoph Strauch @c_strauch

We report on a truly astonishing case (open access): D.W., a person, without neurological abnormalities who has learned to change his pupil size voluntarily, as it stands at direct control. (Long but interesting thread following): doi.org/10.1016/j.ijps…

^ STUDY MORE WEIRD PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Science Banana @literalbanana

“In my experience, nudges usually fail to have *any* recognizable impact at all.” thebehavioralscientist.com/articles/the-d… (h/t @Cpranger12)

The death of behavioral economics - Jason Hreha<p>The official site of applied behavioral scientist Jason Hreha. He’s currently building the Walmart Behavioral Science division, which applies psychology to business, HR, and technology design problems. </p>thebehavioralscientist.com

Patrick Collison @patrickc

@ctbeiser This finding has nothing to do with Fast Grants or Covid-19 science and has been ringing in my ears. How do these incorporeal bureaucracies sleep at night?

Shreeda Segan @freeshreeda

What's the last physical object you bought that had a noticeable improvement on your QOL?

^ great recommendations

Tony Kulesa @kulesatony

The biotech startup ecosystem is dominated by a culture that requires every executive team to have done it before. Many companies are even created by VCs internally. But a new model is emerging -- the founder-led biotech. Why I think this is the future:

The future of biotech is founder-led | Tony Kulesa | Pillar VCIdeas, technology, and investment capital are no longer the scarcest resources; the limiting reagent is founders. We can change that.pillar.vc

halvorz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @halvorz

if intelligence increases the odds of a person being correct, but increases the odds of them being a persuasive arguer much more, is it rational to distrust people much more intelligent than you?

halvorz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @halvorz

[REPOST] Epistemic Learned Helplessness[This is a slightly edited repost of an essay from my old LiveJournal] A friend recently complained about how many people lack the basic skill of believing arguments. That is, if you have a valid a…slatestarcodex.com

^ one of the best posts of all time

augustus odena @gstsdn

Second, we evaluate whether these models can interact with a human to iteratively refine their outputs. We find that 4 turns of dialog with a human can double the number of problems solved by the model.

^ thread

Justin Fields Enjoyer @lib_crusher

New horrific state of conciousness just dropped

Massimo @Rainmaker1973

Small blobs of human brain grown in a dish have been coaxed into forming rudimentary eyes, which respond to light by sending signals to the rest of the brain tissue [read more: https://t.co/yOdlu4onQl] https://t.co/0uReuJgq6V

Massimo @Rainmaker1973

Small blobs of human brain grown in a dish have been coaxed into forming rudimentary eyes, which respond to light by sending signals to the rest of the brain tissue [read more: buff.ly/3jZLhEl]

Leopold Aschenbrenner @leopoldasch

Incredible. German military plane—one that could fit hundreds—sent to Kabul with much fanfare. It leaves with only 7 people on board. Others weren’t on the official list. German bureaucracy at its finest. bild.de/politik/auslan…

Erik Marquardt @ErikMarquardt

Der deutsche A400M ist nun laut @bild mit 7 Personen aus #Kabul abgeflogen. Statt unbürokratisch möglichst viele zu retten, werden viele Ortskräfte noch nicht einmal registriert, um auf die Listen für Flieger zu kommen. Unsere Bürokratie tötet, was für ein Versagen. #kabulairport

Nearcyan @Nearcyan

A lot of finance apps in the US use services such as Plaid to help you connect accounts and make payments When this is done, Plaid takes your username and password to login to your third-party account. Then they also scrape your transactions and sell them

Plaid settled $58 million lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing - FinLedgerFinancial connectivity provider Plaid has settled a $58 million class action lawsuit over claims that the fintech firm passed on personal banking data to third party firms without user consent.finledger.com

Nearcyan @Nearcyan

(yes, when you link your bank accounts via Plaid and alternatives, you are basically being phished; giving out your credentials+2fa to a third party that then uses them to scrape information on you and sell it, while trying to hide this from you. consumer finance is...painful)

Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok

Great thread. tl;dr Clever Econ 101 analysis suggested that war on opium poppy in Afghanistan would mostly raise prices to farmers not reduce quantity and divert production to Taliban controlled regions increasing their tax revenues and power--and that is what happened.

Jeffrey P. Clemens @jeffreypclemens

An underrated mistake in US policy in Afghanistan was its long-running effort to suppress the cultivation of opium poppy and, in turn, the production of heroin and other opiates. A thread. 1/19

Jeffrey P. Clemens @jeffreypclemens

As documented in a recent report by the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghan poppy cultivation has if anything drifted gradually upward since the US first ramped up its expenditures on the effort to suppress opium production (roughly in 2005): unodc.org/documents/crop… 9/19

Quarantined section

Eran Segal @segal_eran

Israel data showing the decay of vaccine efficacy over time. Y-axis is cases per 1000 from July 7 to Aug 10, for unvaccinated, and for people vaccinated at different times Cases are higher in those vaxed earlier Despite world-data caveats, this seems quite compelling

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