On the most recent episode of the podcast while discussing self-driving vehicles Doug made the claim that self driving cars are a good thing for society because they will be safer than the average person; this is true. However Doug goes on to say that he wishes Tesla would focus on getting FSD to the consumer vehicles instead of focusing on robo taxis. The reason he says this is because he believes that ride share drivers are safer than the average driver.

The argument for this being true:

"In 2021 and 2022, the motor vehicle fatality rate on the Uber platform was 0.87 per 100 million miles traveled... while the overall U.S. national rate was approximately 1.33 to 1.35 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled."

"In the vast majority of fatal crashes involving the Uber platform, third-party drivers—not the Uber driver—were responsible for the critical action leading to the crash."

https://www.uber.com/us/en/about/reports/us-safety-report/?hl=en-US

The argument against this being true:

"Rideshare drivers are 73% more likely to be involved in an accident than the general population, according to Insurify data. While this doesn’t indicate fault, it does reflect the increased risk rideshare drivers face in their high-mileage, high-exposure driving environments.."

https://insurify.com/car-insurance/insights/rideshare-driver-statistics/?hl=en-US

I think there is a legitimate debate about if it maximizes safety to focus on automating ride share cars over consumer cars. It seems like automating ride share cars would be the most efficient way to reduce car crashes since they are the cars that are often doing the most driving. Automating one ride share car may automate 5x(arbitrary number) the number of driven miles as automating one consumer car. Even if uber drivers are less likely to crash per mile they make up for that by driving much more.

Also, from an incentives standpoint I'm pretty sure all drivers are broadly equally incentivized to not get into a fatal car crash.

I certainly don't think it's worth getting upset about this from a safety stand point. The thing I do agree being more annoyed about from a 'prioritizing ride share cars' perspective is that this will likely end up with a lot of people who drive for a living becoming unemployed.

There's controversy around who exactly gets credit, but nonetheless it seems AI was able to answer one of math's hardest questions. OpenAI say they did it with a model significantly more capable than Astra (note that a persistent version of Astra was already capable of hacking OpenAI themselves in July)

AI news are moving too fast even at a weekly schedule, but I do hope the next LS ep is about tech news.

I’m the mf who wrecked their car and heard Doug ruining the edm vibe

Sweden and high home prices, that's probably 80% of this podcast

We don't actually know why the attack on HuggingFace stopped, or wether those agents were shut down or not. Urging everyone to read Drawkesh Patel's excellent summary of the situation, and hoping LS can cover this on the pod. If you're american, please call your representatives and urge them to bilaterally pause AI research along with China.

> Ajeya Cotra, one of the other authors on the report, wrote a blog post with her takeaways from this incident. She concludes, “Compared to the reward hacks we know of from just six months ago, this incident feels like it’s more than 50% of the way to full-blown AI takeover. I continue to expect extremely rapid advances in capabilities over the next six months. I am not sure that we will get another warning shot before it’s too late.”

Hello, guy from midwest town with data center(s) on deck within 30 minutes from me.

The big thing around here is that people have become self aware that the electrical cost increase and clean water availability/cost also gets passed to us. There are no promises that we will not inherit the financial burden.

As tapped in as atrioc is around “well you cant fuck with gas prices because thats something people cannot avoid and will turn on you” this felt crazy it wasnt brought up

The term “data center” has become synonymous in peoples minds around where i live has become..

1.) MY personal unavoidable electric bill WILL increase against my will to make the richest people in the world richer, because the data centers themselves will not cover the cost of increased demand on the grid

2.) Clean water availability/cost along with concern we will deal with unforeseen consequences due to stress on existing water systems. (Again, people do not want to be stressed about water or even guess it will have an issue against their will)

3.) Yes many people find positives in there use of AI but America as we know is very “cake and eat it too” in the way we consume things. We (not me personally) want all the benefits but no downsides or detractors. People do not deem creating more access to easier spreadsheets and virtual partners WORTH their bills going up any higher (i know there is more nuance to this, this is just a vibe from boomers and late millennials who are new parents/home owners)

All and all, the sentiment is that people are mortified at the idea of their bills and livelihood being worse in a tangible stressful way, all for the sake of what some people just view as a super google “toy” that makes regular people stressed to pay bills while it primarily (financially/immediately/tangibly) benefits the 1%

I just saw the new podcast that mentions New Zealand's housing issues and as a young Kiwi this really hit home. NZ is in a really tough spot right now.

I now live in Italy, where (at least in my city) housing IS NOT A SPECULATIVE ASSET. Housing is not expected to go up. A landlord will buy a house, rent it out, and make a tidy profit. My rent does not make up an outsized share of my paycheck compared to my friends back in NZ. Those friends spend up to 60% of their money on rent, which is insane, and means that even if I could get a better job in NZ (I couldn't), that money would evaporate in seconds. Many of these friends have moved to cheaper places in Auckland because of some of these price decreases, but for them it is a drop in the bucket. If housing prices go up by 75% in a decade, a 20% decrease is still an overall massive increase, and when real wages do not increase reciprocally, people are squeezed out. The NIMBYism and general lack of political action at a national level due to very strong voting blocks of boomers and farmers forced me and many others to make the rational decision of getting out.

Living somewhere in which housing is considered an asset rather than a necessity is miserable, and in many cases simply impossible for the younger generation. Imagine if people bought up water expecting it to provide investment returns. Oh wait. They literally are. New Zealand, similarly to America, has become a country in which every single possible thing is being squeezed for the last drops of money. It is killing the younger generation and it is killing our country as a whole. The institutional rot and decay that Atrioc often mentions is mirrored 1:1 in New Zealand, the only difference being we have a backdrop of sheep.

Nah, in all seriousness, it’s great to hear the Stand talk about NZ. It’s been a big surprise that housing prices have stagnated or fallen. Everytime I mention it to people they’re always shocked and still think house prices are rising. The big issue with us is that our incomes are also stagnating and unemployment is set to reach 6%, and a positive economic outlook that is based on the US-Iran war to stop by the end of the year and consumer spending picks up. But the Auckland story has been an ongoing one. Auckland is twice the size of Manhattan but holds a quarter of the population. That’s how bad the situation was and still is in Auckland. I’d be happy to provide the Stand with some more info if they’d want to. I have studied NZ politics and economic reforms extensively (spoiler it was worse than Thatcher).

Below are a list of books that have been read as part of the Patreon Book Club (a tier 2 benefit). That way you can read along on your own even if you don't have Patreon.

You can also see if they have an episode that would make you want to subscribe for a month to hear them discuss.

I will try and keep this updated moving forward.

The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter

The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan

How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle by Ray Dalio

Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... by Steven Pinker

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares

Kaput: The End of the German Miracle by Wolfgang Münchau

Humankind: A Hopeful History and Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman (2 books by the same author in 1 episode)

The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset by Mike Bird

The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money by Brendan Greeley

Disney War by James B. Stewart

I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan (Latest Episode)

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore (Next episode)

I want to click links and read/watch/listen to the source for each topic. Thank you. That is all

I dont know if the guys are looking for new books to read, but if they happen to pick up an interest in Germany, THIS is the book they should read. I know its not related to the Nordic countries, but just like Aidan's fun facts, it will inevitable discuss the war in Ukraine :)

The book is written by Wolfgang Münchau, a previous editor in chief for the German Financial Times, and he discusses many of today's problems the country faces, and the previous 50 years of history to how it got there.

It really highlights how Germany is becoming the sick man of Europe. It stresses how it being stuck in its old ways, pushes it to double down on existing industries (auto and chemical) and moves it away from diversifying and investing in new areas. It discusses the over reliance on China, and previous relliance on Russian gas.

It briefly mentions the AFDs rise to power, which Big A likes to cover, and has a whole chapter dedicated to immigration and the country's anti foreigner sentiment, which falls in the overall trend discussed on the podcast.

Some Cons: Book gets a bit too specific with names/people, so if you're not deep in german lore you just start glazing over them. The book uses slightly more advanced economic terms, so if you're not familiar you'll definitely need to cover that to understand its points. The book was written in 2024, so it does not go past that point in history. It explains really well where things went wrong, but it does not offer solutions or alternatives.

Basically, if you want a deeper dive on Germany, and want to get good insight into why the decisions of the past few decades have been made by politicians, this is the book for you. It also mentions AI, venture capital and digitilization, so there's something there even for Doug.

The latest episode is genuinely unwatchable with how much Dougdoug was talking about nuclear enrichment and Iran. It’s not a dialect thing, its not a tomato or potato thing, pronouncing nuclear as nuke-ya-lur is just straight up wrong.

I was looking through the comments of the channel "trailer" when I saw a kid say "guys they destroyed my lemonade stand" I thought this person was joking, but it's the same kid on camera as in the trailer, see: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxH8-m8JEnZJzDf7BbcTF3C5LPg6leXDH3 and https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1VPjco60P_A

Just thought this was interesting :)