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Robin Hanson

@robinhanson128k followers

Let’s skip witty banter & talk deep Qs. Books: Advisor @_futarchy @MetaDAOProject @butterygg

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Oct 16
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Posts 82 posts
#DatePost↓ OutlierViewsLikesRepostsBookmarks
1Dec 25, '24This is actually the right question to ask.193×5M106k2.2k3.5k
2Apr 4, '25Uh, why is there a thin vertical strip of high fertility? And why does it map so close to a time zone boundary?!191×5M38k9797k
4Aug 23, '23Why is the cultural prestige/influence of music 10x that of video games, if game industry is 10x larger?30.5×791k1.2k69222
5Jan 12, '25Its a good question, why didn't electric knives become more popular?28.3×734k11k185767
6Jul 22, '23"Oppenheimer admitted to being a 'fellow traveler.' Indeed, Oppenheimer lied to government investigators & was often evasive about his numerous close relationships with known commu24.2×628k5659044
7May 5, '25I'm told the once internal CIA prediction markets are no more, and not because they weren't accurate.23.7×615k2.8k68701
8Mar 14, '23I am 63 years old, & the thing I'd most like younger folks to get about the past is: we almost never rudely & meanly insulted each other in public. Doing so directly in pri22.9×595k1.1k76115
9Oct 6, '24All that fun is fully available to smart people; they just tend to choose otherwise.16.7×434k2.8k56514
10Aug 19, '25Friend who just visited Africa says it lowered his estimate of Africa picking up the world economy innovation/productivity slack when (in ~30yr) world population peaks, & Afric16.7×434k1.7k29196
11Jul 12, '24"2nd century B.C. historian Polybius warned that a falling birthrate precedes civilizational collapse. … Sloth grows, spiritual concerns are replaced by material ones, and populati16.3×424k91982389
12Aug 19, '24Some people are really good at board games. Not just one or a few but they can do well at most any. Why don’t they then do better at life? How do board games differ so systematical14.7×383k91518158
14Mar 23, '18It still amazes me that academic fields, connected by co-citation, are arranged in a ring. Is there a missing "dark field" in the middle that we will find someday to connect it all13.9×05k2.2k286
15Oct 20, '24We should seriously consider the possibility that ancient folks near Chile, Peru, etc. invented hot air balloons.13.1×340k1.3k46175
17Dec 25, '24Nothing makes food taste better than not eating for many days before. Yet how often do supposed "foodies" use this time-tested trick to achieve max food pleasure?12.2×317k1k2283
18Nov 28, '24These women seem to act as if they have no agency re these arrangements, as if they were imposed on them. Yet beautiful young women would seem to have unusually high power to set t12.1×314k2.3k56546
19Nov 22, '24I'm completely serious in asking: What inspiring centuries-long project could unite the largest % of the world, so that their joint pursuit of it could unite them & give deep m11.9×310k1.3k68350
21Mar 30, '24In Lord of the Rings, the one ring of power is something that results in bad even when wielded by someone who desires to do good with it. Are there such things in our world?11.4×296k58221147
22Apr 23, '24Does anyone understand why it is important that music have words, but not that the words make any sense?9.8×255k96850131
25Mar 13, '24I'd happily bet against this.9.3×243k1.1k60105
26Oct 7, '24All my life, I have deeply loved and trusted my culture. So it is a terrible soul-crushing shock to realize that I actually can’t trust it.9.2×240k67936445
27Dec 20, '24I would bet against this.8.2×214k1.9k42169
29Mar 27, '25There are in fact larger dollar amounts than $14K.8.0×207k2.4k5395
30Jul 31, '23Since ~1970, women have slowly been getting more of what they demand, which has made them steadily less happy, while making men more happy. Mad about men being happy, ~2000 women f7.9×205k59795198
31Oct 10, '25Years ago a NYC based software firm ran some prediction markets, hoping in part to find & promote "diamonds in the rough" employees who predict especially well. They did find s7.7×200k1.9k55387
32Jul 30, '23So why is it okay to acknowledge bad aspects of very good things, but not okay to acknowledge good aspects of very bad things?7.4×193k7734869
35Jul 16, '24Did a little learning about @JDVance1 after his nomination. Disagree with some stuff, agree with others. But my main impression is: this guy is smart! At least comparing to most po6.9×180k6371558
36Feb 13, '25Striking facts: - US is going broke on extreme med spending (18% of GDP, biggest govt spend) - US medical specialists who've looked at data know that medicine has very low marginal5.9×154k2k126387
39Nov 10, '24Check out my new project:5.2×134k80397180
40Mar 16, '25I've lost here, & I'm ready to pay; @ESYudkowsky, please DM me what PayPal address to pay.5.0×129k1.3k2278
41Aug 19, '24"What it’s like to be a personal assistant to very rich people …. you’re isolated in many ways. One family I was traveling with for 3 months, they had profound inherited wealth & t4.7×121k85145412
42Oct 27, '25On reflection, I say this will be the strongest UFO evidence found for at least the next ten years, and is quite likely (>75%) to be confirmed by any replication efforts on the 4.5×116k65752307
43Nov 5, '22I see a coordinated effort by a big elite coalition to crush Twitter now due to its current leader defying its stated wishes. If this succeeds, many other orgs will learn big lesso4.4×02.4k258140
44Jun 21, '25It is OBVIOUSLY possible to make much harder tests where no one gets a perfect score. They don't do this on purpose so that non-test criteria can dominate choices.4.2×110k2.1k108116
46May 14, '22"the more than 140,000 Americans who earn more than $1.58 million per year. … typical rich American is … the owner of a 'regional business,' such as an 'auto dealer' or a 'beverage4.0×01.5k194634
47Mar 16, '25I've just paid off on this bet to @ATabarrok, who won.4.0×103k7383034
48Jan 16, '24"U.S. government would have to spend approximately half of its expected lifetime tax receipts if it wanted to fully offset families’ costs of having a child." So, its feasible then3.9×101k59146189
49Nov 28, '16Good CS expert says: Most firms that thinks they want advanced AI/ML really just need linear regression on cleaned-up data.3.8×01.4k7434
50Apr 30, '23You recommended, I complied:3.7×97k7872113
51Aug 11, '25We should use exile far more than we do as a criminal remedy.3.6×92k8756048
53Jul 30, '25"someone not very diverse"3.2×83k2.8k49115
54Nov 3, '25"unnatural hair colour predicts mental illness with a moderately large effect size, β = -0.33, and there is also a notable effect size for vegetarianism, β = -0.31. … Having tattoo3.1×81k1.3k91365
55Dec 12, '22GPT3: 175b params for $4.6M. GPT4: 100t params for $2.6B. This trend line can't go up much further. After that we'll have to wait for computing cost to fall.3.1×01.2k177404
56Sep 29, '24ALL innovation changes the world without democratic consent.3.0×77k8325338
57Mar 2, '25There are two ways to prove you are smart. Prove you can do exactly what you are told faster & more reliably than others. Or prove that you can see what others have missed, def2.8×73k83435200
58May 12, '25"The reason why we don't have Bell Labs is because we're unwilling to do what it takes to create Bell Labs — giving smart people radical freedom and autonomy."2.7×69k1.2k136329
59Jun 14, '20More people should, as they retire, publish a tell-all on the career world they saw. Describe concretely & in detail what they saw & how things seem to work there. Where th2.5×01.5k15085
61Aug 28, '25Today I turn 66.2.3×61k88027
62Aug 28, '24Today is my 65th birthday. The traditional US age to retire. As a tenured academic, I'm not inclined to retire anytime soon. But I'm on notice that, w/o unlikely radical changes, o2.3×61k8351647
64Sep 2, '24Why is a male not liking promiscuous partners a less legitimate sexual orientation than all the others?2.2×57k5981451
65Mar 21, '20So has anyone seen ANY published cost-benefit analysis of life-years saved vs. economic disruption for #COVID19 lockdown policies? Isn't it weird that no one has bothered with such2.1×093113556
66Sep 17, '21"in the 20th century, people [said] … this was racist propaganda on the part of the Greeks & Romans … & that Carthage should be saved from this terrible slander. 'What we a2.0×0894172113
67Jan 9, '22She's not at all invisible to guys like me, but I'd guess guys like me are invisible to her.1.9×01.2k5549
68Jul 12, '24This is SO much stronger a personal credential than a school degree.1.8×48k6283230
69Jul 18, '22“religious men and women who married in their twenties without cohabiting first .. have the lowest odds of divorce in America today”1.8×097713873
70Oct 6, '24Many people, even usually very smart and thoughtful people, allow politics to make them go a bit crazy. The month before a major election is a great time to note and remember who t1.8×47k6144744
71Jul 30, '22On Twitter, as elsewhere, people are quite eager to express their political opinions re what they would do if they were king or God. But while politics is largely the art of compro1.7×09569757
72Nov 29, '24I'm grateful to, and impressed by @elonmusk, for all he's done. But I'm still a bit disturbed to see posts by the owner of this platform appear so often in my "For You" feed. I wis1.7×44k7412432
73Aug 29, '21A pregnant pattern: religion has a future.1.7×07127773
74Mar 6, '20We must IMMEDIATELY begin desperate mass program to train people who can treat #COVID19 patients who need an ICU, but using less than full ICU tools & resources. We must accept1.7×083016919
75Jun 3, '19Amazingly oblivious quote: “The genocide in Rwanda is a far-reaching tragedy that has taken a particularly hard toll on women. They now comprise 70% of the population, since the ge1.7×067721743
76Nov 1, '25What if when you believe in the wrong God, the right God gets mad and punishes you for it?1.6×43k7131518
77Aug 28, '25Most science fiction seems to me to be in complete denial about modern rates of cultural change. Most stories spread across centuries imagine characters who mostly share the same c1.6×43k72433100
78Dec 18, '16Philosophy is mainly useful in inoculating you against other philosophy. Else you'll be vulnerable to the first coherent philosophy you hear1.6×072323035
79Feb 16, '25This is just not enough info for me to conclude that a society is "dystopian".1.6×42k6351255
80Nov 20, '24The idea that woke is over, with progressives no longer having substantial influence in the world, seems crazy wrong to me.1.6×42k6033836
82Aug 9, '24Keeping people in school til 22 wastes almost half their subjective lives1.6×41k65356113
83Mar 24, '19"Sweden is the 6th most protective of private property rights, of all the nations in the world. … the most privatized pension system, by far, in all of Europe. Sweden has a 100% un1.5×062419070
84Jan 2, '19The main reason our world is better than past worlds is our better institutions, not a better tendency toward moral behavior regardless of institution. So pushing for better instit1.5×076614027
85Jul 13, '20"unattractive people received 120–305 % longer sentences than attractive people. As a comparison, another study found that black people received 6–20 % longer sentences than white 1.5×072713979
87Jan 26, '18"All our mass-culture narratives … have the same structure: good guys battle bad guys for the moral future of society. These tropes are all over our movies and comic books. And yet1.4×05692088
88Apr 14, '22We should have a lot more hostile takeovers, via weaker legal obstacles to doing so. They are a powerful under used way to discipline management.1.4×07858430
89Jan 15, '22“If you talk to an economist, the economist might say, ‘Wealth comes from printing money.’” No, no economists say that.1.4×08544635
90Dec 4, '24I'm often asked what have I changed my mind about. Here's one: Until recently, I seriously underestimated how powerful is the influence of TV/movies/music on the world. Its how mos1.4×36k6074088
91Sep 13, '21The main reason people quit pursuing ambitions and fantasies isn't the effort required, it is the extra pain that comes from knowing you are trying and failing. Not trying and fail1.3×06976995
92Nov 21, '21This is sad and crazy stupid. They don't have a less-biased alternative on offer. They think they do in their own intuitive judgment, but they are very wrong.1.3×07917020
93Nov 13, '24I did not expect crypto world to grow as big as it has. I underestimated the appeal to young capable men of a "decentralized" frontier that felt open to all to compete in, offered 1.2×32k7075486
94Jul 11, '21Billionaires have always competed. Best is when they compete to make new innovative ventures. But compared to invisible-to-the-rest-of-us yachts, mansions, exclusive parties, etc.,1.1×07754010
95Jan 21, '25He could have said "not for extreme positions". Telling that he chose not to.1.1×28k6593337
96Nov 6, '24If it had been Harris who won, and Trump who had not yet conceded, we'd be hearing more about it.1.0×26k6901817
97Jan 17, '19As an intellectual who tries think straight in a storm of complex potential biases, I remain stunned by the ability of music to change my mood and attitudes without my consent or u1.0×0604569
98Sep 16, '24Having been a university prof for 25yrs, I can personally confirm a huge increase in rules, paperwork, and administrative burden, most of which adds little value.0.9×25k7574335
99Aug 16, '24Tattoos really do still signal what folks always said they did.0.9×24k6012055

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