Mid-March Reading Thread
Links
The Rules-Based Order is Dead. Long Live the Rules-Based Order.
Comment: a liberal critique of a fallen paradigm in international relations.
The Lobbying Push to War in Iran
Comment: not shocking that Iran’s top two regional rivals lead the charge.
“All Lawful Use.” Scott Alexander Reviews What ChatGPT May Do to You
Comment: Amodei was right. Current law is insufficient. Paging congress (if only we had a congress…).
Bret Stephens Prosecutes the Case for the Iran War
Comment: Stephens is describing best case scenarios with little eye toward what will likely happen, in part because the inherent chaos of this war makes projecting likely outcomes really difficult. I don’t find this case compelling, but it is the kind of thing the administration should be saying to a joint session of congress as it asks for a declaration of war.
Rule Against Trump? Brace for Death Threats
Comment: my most anti-free-speech view: death threats should be illegal. I will settle for ‘I can attack you if you make a death threat.’
St. Elmo’s Fire: More Common Than You Thought?
Comment: sometimes nature is just cool.
Comment: meet the new right, just as obsessed with sex and grievance as the old right.
Comment: can we get some more of that congestion pricing in Toronto?
The First AI Problem on the Job Market is not Replacement. It’s Spam.
Comment: in this way, the academic job market was ahead of the curve. We’ve already done a couple rounds of the spam/anti-spam arms race. Are we gonna get a literal empirical run of the secretary problem?
The Iran War Makes it to Sri Lanka
Comment: shades of the General Belgrano in this one. My own view is that war is war, and it’s fine to complain that a war is unjust, but it is not fine to complain when your military assets out of theater get hit.
The Nates (Silver) Visit Texas (Cohn)
Comment: first interesting election of 2026.
Is JD Vance Gonna Get Excommunicated?
Comment: no, because Catholics don’t really do that anymore. But by historical standards he should be.
The California Service Workers Found a Clever Way to Extort People
Comment: this is just like tech companies and their attention-hacking algorithms. Doesn’t feel nice when the shoe is on the other foot, does it?
How Does the Iran War Measure Up on Just War Criteria?
Comment: not great.
Comment: they’re beginning to flee the ship.
Is AI Speeding up Scientific Discovery?
Comment: no evidence that it is. Yet.
Comment: and it’s irrational to participate if you have left-ish politics.
The Journey Home in the Shadow of War
Comment: I’ve had to skedaddle amid geopolitics once or twice in the Middle East, but thankfully never as severely as this dude.
Pete Hegseth is Among the Poisoned Fruit of Iraq
Comment: the geopolitical blunder that just can’t stop giving.
MattY on the Inevitability of Cancellation
Comment: yeah, I would hate being cancelled, but what are you going to do? Not say stuff?
Comment: telling AI where they should be directing their efforts would actually be very useful. Critique is not the only contribution you can make.
Good News? There Are No Psychopaths
Comment: bad news, the people who did all that stuff had normal emotions and were simply evil.
Alex Karp: Our Tech Will Transfer Economic Power from Educated Women to Working-Class Men
Comment: no, it will not. Once you automate the educated professions, the robotics revolution comes and makes labor obsolete. There is not a stable equilibrium where some machine is smart enough to replace lawyers and professors but just can’t design Plumberbot.
The Many Unconstitutional and Illegal Acts of the Administration
Comment: an underrated piece. At one point French says that the problem with immigration and constitutional rights is that ICE ignores district courts as a way of giving the Supreme Court a vote of confidence. But the Shadow Docket is a big reason why these people disobey district courts! If they lost more in the shadow docket they would be less inclined to pre-emptively award themselves a Supreme Stay of district court orders.
The Twists and Turns of the Texas Senate Race
Comment: Paxton is terrible, but there’s a good case that it would be better for the nation if he won the R primary. The Cornyn-Paxton difference is small enough that risking its badness is worth the goodness of the Talarico-Cornyn difference, at least at the odds ranges the polls suggest.
Comment: warriors apparently gotta eat rich people food. What happened to salted pork and hardtack?
The Millennials are DoorDashing the Avocado Toast
Comment: delivery discourse is usually kinda dumb, but there are lots of interesting nuggets in this article (including the point that “nutritional inequality” is mostly voluntary).
Delusional Infestation is a Fascinating Phenomenon
Comment: this is one place where basic automation can help the medical system, if it can focus doctors’ attention away from clear cases that a bot could catch and onto more complicated cases that require human experience and creativity.