[HN Gopher] Learning not to trust the All-In podcast
___________________________________________________________________
Learning not to trust the All-In podcast
Author : paulpauper
Score : 278 points
Date : 2024-11-06 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (passingtime.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (passingtime.substack.com)
| Centigonal wrote:
| There was the opendoor ipo, there was Jason Calacanis "sharpening
| the knives" ahead of the Twitter acquisition, there was what
| David Sacks did to Zenefits, and there's more. People are going
| to keep trusting these guys, simply because they have a hard-on
| for charismatic people with a lot of money, an extremely short
| memory, and refusal to believe that _they_ will be the next ones
| to be scammed.
| 27153 wrote:
| It's frustratingly impressive how grifters are able to maintain
| a grift even after it's made evident that they are grifting...
| wrs wrote:
| One of the effects of a successful grift is that contrary
| facts don't matter -- in fact contrary facts just reinforce
| the grift by strengthening the us against them dynamic.
| mhluongo wrote:
| David Sacks*
| Centigonal wrote:
| thanks, fixed!
| goleary wrote:
| David *Sucks
| schnable wrote:
| I find these guys are pretty insightful when discussing tech
| and VC news. The politics talk is awful. Chamath is a
| lightweight who doesn't know anything about how our government
| works but speaks confidently -- I remember one time he was
| talking about how raising the debt ceiling will allow the
| President to spend more money. Sacks is a partisan hack who
| will spin everything as a positive for Trump and MAGA politics.
| That's after he was a hack for Desantis.
| winterrx wrote:
| I find that I listen to them mainly for the tech and VC
| discussion as you said. The politics conversations are very
| drowning and I am gladly looking forward to not having to
| hear as much of this given the election is over.
| bartread wrote:
| I have an imprecise and somewhat tongue in cheek measure of
| a leader's quality that suggests it is inversely
| proportional to the frequency with which they appear in the
| news. I seem to remember from his last term that Trump is
| at least a daily fixture even within the British media. I
| think I'm just going to spend even less time consuming
| mainstream media.
| astrange wrote:
| People have short memories, but the last time Trump was in
| office you had to hear about him all the time. (Of course
| the real concerning trend is that every recent R
| administration ends in an economic collapse.)
| fny wrote:
| Chamath is a fraud. He dumped an unbelievable number of SPACs
| retail that imploded.[0] The fact that he's part of the All-
| In crew speaks volumes.
|
| [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chamath-palihapitiya-
| crumblin...
| olix0r wrote:
| "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows.
| You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know
| well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You
| read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no
| understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the
| article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward--
| reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets
| cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
|
| "In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the
| multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to
| national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of
| the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than
| the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what
| you know."
|
| - Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
| digdugdirk wrote:
| It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote
| like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same
| trap himself. It really shows how difficult it is for the
| human mind to have perspective on itself.
| rikthevik wrote:
| We are all blind to ourselves.
|
| I feel like I should get that tattooed on my hand, next
| to one saying, "It's not about you."
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| The fact that it's named after Murray Gell-Man, a Nobel
| prize winning physicist should tell you something.
| Intelligence doesn't save you from it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _these guys are pretty insightful when discussing tech and
| VC news_
|
| They seem insightful. They're generally behind the curve and
| remind of _Stratfor_.
|
| If anything, _All In_ is better connected on politics. But
| that may be my Gell-Mann amnesia at play because I know the
| finance side of tech very well, and they're not only
| frequently but paradoxically consistently wrong on it in ways
| that one sees institutional-versus-retail flows profit off.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Do you think that of the four of them, Friedberg has a best
| grasp of the finance side of things? I would think he would
| be since he was apparently formerly involved in IB, PE,
| then corp dev when he was younger.
| lxgr wrote:
| Sounds like it is. When somebody is confidently wrong in an
| area you're familiar with, and confidently speaking about
| areas you're not, isn't that an instant epistemic red flag?
| avs733 wrote:
| they perform insightfullness
| takinola wrote:
| Interestingly, I agreed with the idea that they are better
| when discussing tech and VC (after all that's their day
| job). Do you have any examples of where they have been
| significantly off on tech finance?
| DesiLurker wrote:
| Likewise for VC/tech. I started listening for those topics
| and in those days that used to be almost entire show then
| they slowly started pivot to politics & social commentary
| which I dont care much for (from them). they are a bunch of
| centi/billionaire and should stick to that lane but I feel
| now they have become the podcast arm of RW. I have to say I
| find myself skipping lots of portions now, its almost not
| worth it but I still do it to catch up on the dog-whistle to
| other closeted republican tech/VC/leadership but then WSJ
| does that better than them.
|
| some observations, IDK if others have noticed: - chamath
| always speaks last as if he is some kind of village elder, I
| think it allows him to present a better pov than he actually
| has - sacks is good at logic/debating and It seems they use
| that to push a RW pov without sounding like they are
| endorsing it by presenting a weak/half baked opposition to
| it.
|
| overall I find hard to take them seriously outside of core
| tech/VC stuff. the science guy is okay but meh.
| aerhardt wrote:
| I didn't know about any of these incidents, but I could never
| listen to the podcast because they all sounded like a bunch of
| douchebags to me.
|
| Maybe sometimes there's an evolutionary advantage in prejudice?
| greenie_beans wrote:
| I watched their election result livestream last night. They had
| some notable guests, like Donald Trump Jr. and Steve Bannon.
| Bannon was excited about the prospect of deporting 15 million
| people. Jason seemed shocked, as if this wasn't what he's been
| supporting all along. Does he not realize that he's in bed with
| fascists? Or he's just a fascist too?
|
| They hinted at knowing who will be the secretary of state and
| treasury secretary, like it was somebody in their circle. Seemed
| like Elon Musk will be Trump's righthand man, the way they were
| acting. They were hyper-fixated on DEI and "woke" in politics.
| They think the government should be run like a CEO, obviously
| influenced by Moldbug ideas. Sure, they might be very skilled at
| becoming rich, but these are not the people we want in
| government.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| Anybody who is going to be shocked at what happens as far as
| aggressive policies aimed at women, minorities, immigrants, the
| elderly, and the lower income brackets really has no excuse.
| They haven't been shy in stating their intentions. You can say
| you made a choice to support it, but don't hide and say you
| didn't know.
| voisin wrote:
| 100%. In 2016 it was fair to be shocked that he meant what he
| said literally rather than figuratively in a crass manner of
| getting elected. I think everyone expected he would cut to
| the middle once elected, as he was a New York democrat for
| his whole life. But in 2024 we now know that when he says
| something he means it.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| I will firmly admit, that in the 2015 primaries I thought
| he was the lesser of 2 evils between him and Ted Cruz. I
| will absolutely state that I was foolish and wrong. That's
| not happening again.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| They won't be shocked, it's literally what they wanted and
| why people voted the way they did. You can't just blame
| corruption or something anymore. It's what people want.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| And that is the saddest part of all.
| ks2048 wrote:
| I think lots of voters want "let's deport all illegal
| immigrants!"
|
| I think they would be shocked if they understood what kind
| of operation it would take to deport 15 million and what
| the side effects would be. For comparison, the entire
| (huge) prison population is 1.9 million.
|
| I think some terrible things will happen to immigrants (and
| people suspected of being immigrants), but this scale
| doesn't seem possible and will be fought against by
| powerful interests (businesses employing them, etc).
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Maybe they should just do what Canada does and have
| really high civil/criminal penalties for employing
| illegal immigrants (so no job, they just go back because
| no work)? The problem is that a lot of farmers, hotel
| owners, and people who work construction projects vote
| Republican also, so it seems like that will never happen
| in the US.
| ks2048 wrote:
| I could image a gradual shift to something like that. But
| if 15 million workers can't work suddenly, there aren't
| people to do those jobs. Those people also buy groceries,
| pay rent, etc.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Ya, but being more honest about immigration is better in
| the long term. Well, I say that, but that's what Canada
| did and people (not just conservatives) are still angry.
| Instead of blaming illegal immigrants, however, they just
| blame legal ones.
| threeseed wrote:
| Latinos broke for Trump in unprecedented numbers,
| especially men.
|
| Wonder how they will feel being constantly asked for
| papers lest they be thought of as undocumented and
| discriminated against.
| henning wrote:
| Trump is not skilled at becoming rich. He is skilled at losing
| money and getting bailed out by his rich father over and over.
| If you're rich enough, you can be a total loser and it doesn't
| matter.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| I'm not talking about Trump. This is about the podcast hosts.
| winterrx wrote:
| > They hinted at knowing who will be the secretary of state and
| treasury secretary, like it was somebody in their circle.
| Seemed like Elon Musk will be Trump's righthand man, the way
| they were acting.
|
| I agree. It was a livestream last night and there were a couple
| slight slip ups that you could notice such as this, and Chamath
| being drunk causing his wife to take his wine glass away from
| him.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I remember seeing their interview with Trump over the summer.
| They came away convinced that Trump would offer a green card to
| every foreign grad student in the US. I remember how much
| trouble the Trump immigration policy caused for foreign
| students in his previous term. It's very hard for me to believe
| that Trump will do a complete 180 on that, and I couldn't
| understand why the All-In guys seemed to just eat it up
| uncritically.
| senkora wrote:
| I remember that one. His campaign immediately walked that
| promise back hard:
|
| > Asked for comment, the Trump campaign said in a statement
| that only after "the most aggressive vetting process in U.S.
| history" would "the most skilled graduates who can make
| significant contributions to America" be able to stay.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-foreign-
| college-...
|
| Of course, no one was surprised by the reversal.
| ks2048 wrote:
| > Seemed like Elon Musk will be Trump's righthand man
|
| That seems like what Musk is angling for. I wonder what Trump
| will do. He could easily backstab people who helped get him
| elected if he feels they are too famous and taking some of his
| spotlight (Musk, RFK Jr). I suppose more likely, he just gives
| them everything they want and goes golfing.
| toephu2 wrote:
| Now they're fascist? I don't think you know what the definition
| of fascism is...
|
| (sounds like you're repeating a talking point of the left of
| calling everyone on the right a fascist..)
| greenie_beans wrote:
| no, if it walks like a duck...
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| Please don't beat me up too much on this.
|
| Even if their faulty assumption was true, wouldn't that just be a
| Keynesian approach to solving a recession? I though Keynes
| approach was that the government should step in a spend more to
| prevent a recession, essentially equalling what is lost in the
| free market.
|
| Fully admit could be totally wrong on this. Just curious.
| 27153 wrote:
| Government spending is how a Keynesian combats a recession. For
| perspective, though, look at this chart of government spending
| as a % of GDP. It has never gotten even close to 85% of GDP
| (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=8fX). Chamath claimed it
| was 85% of GDP _growth_ , which is a different calculation, but
| looking at [this data](https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/
| 2024-10/gdp3q24-adv....) from the past couple of years you can
| see that the claim is still incorrect.
| KK7NIL wrote:
| This is for Q3 of this year, for which the government is saying
| we're not in a recession.
|
| The problem with Keynesian economics is that no one wants to
| turn off the money printer when the times are good.
| astrange wrote:
| > The problem with Keynesian economics is that no one wants
| to turn off the money printer when the times are good.
|
| That's what central bank independence is for. Raising
| interest rates is effectively the same thing.
|
| Besides that it has been turned off for three years:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS
|
| But the US population is getting increasingly older so there
| will be increasing pressure on welfare for them.
| ilya_m wrote:
| Are we in a recession? I don't think so. There was (still is) a
| possibility of a recession, due to elevated interest rates, but
| the way fiscal policy works, through Congress's appropriations,
| it is hopelessly lagging behind monetary policy (the Fed).
| cryptozeus wrote:
| If you make investment decisions based on podcast called all-in
| then yes you should not watch it. It is a entertainment/ news
| podcast, treat it as such.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| No, it's actually a bad idea to expose your brain to
| pathologically dishonest people.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| They make mistake and they also come out and apologize or
| call it out when they are wrong. No one is 100% correct all
| the time. You have never made mistake or said something wrong
| when having discussion with your friends ? They are not
| running this as a educational channel , its a podcast where 4
| friends chit chat.
| lewhoo wrote:
| Apparently the biggest mistake they made is to criticize
| Trump for Jan 6. It's ok, they apologized for that.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Misinterpreting data is easy. To be clear -- I think the All In
| podcast is frequently flagrantly wrong, but basically all
| podcasts that try to foretell events are.
|
| Chamath mistaking 0.85 absolute as 0.85 relative is fairly easy
| to do.
|
| Even the critique's interpretation is very shallow -- things like
| second order effects, like the fiscal multiplier contribution,
| aren't considered. But macro is an art more than a science, and
| what people interpret as 'true' depends immensely on their
| assumptions about how the world actually works.
| 27153 wrote:
| The order of magnitude of his mistake makes it damning.
| Especially considering he began his commentary by noting that
| "the data can be confusing"
| xmprt wrote:
| > Chamath mistaking 0.85 absolute as 0.85 relative is fairly
| easy to do.
|
| I would disagree. If you're actually looking at the data, then
| anyone with a high school education should know that you don't
| take percentages of percentages like this. I still think it's
| ignorance more than malice, but I can't trust someone who would
| make a simple mistake like this to prove a point. I need my
| sources of information to at least be unbiased in how they view
| facts of data.
|
| You can represent those facts differently. For example, he
| might think that 30% of growth being tied to government
| spending is high and I can follow his reasoning based on that.
| However if he claims that the actual figure is 85% then the
| starting point itself is incorrect.
| alexanderchr wrote:
| Sure - it's an easy mistake to make if you are dealing with
| data that don't mean anything to you. But anyone with even a
| tiny bit of experience reading macroeconomic data should be
| able to tell that something is very off with that number and
| question it before parrotting it in a podcast.
| newfocogi wrote:
| In this age of endless expertise, it's easy to be fooled into
| thinking someone is a true authority until you hear them speak on
| a topic you know well. There's a certain thrill in getting a
| glimpse behind the curtain, seeing the man (or woman) behind the
| rhetoric. While I tell myself that 40% of what they say is just
| made up or misinterpreted, I can't help but keep listening,
| captivated by the illusion of insight. Even when we know better,
| the siren song of perceived wisdom is hard to resist. At the end
| of the day, true expertise is rarer than we'd like to admit - but
| the fantasy is always enticing.
| swyx wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
| deskr wrote:
| Wow, I didn't know this effect had a name. I've experienced
| it so many times.
|
| I've also seen how politicians lie and tell half truths about
| stuff, where I know the full story like them.
| TApplencourt wrote:
| It was in the article...
| deskr wrote:
| Shows that it's not safe to assume that a random
| Besserwisser on HN has read the article. In my defence I
| did skim through it though.
| dktoao wrote:
| Thank you so much for this analysis, even as a person with
| layman's grasp on economics you made the deception in host's
| apparent off the cuff assertion very obvious. I think a big part
| of the problem that we have in America (and the rest of the
| world) right now is that it takes these charismatic individuals
| (All-in, Joe Rogan, etc.) 10 seconds to confidently make these
| false claims based on personal bias and vibes. Then it takes 10
| minutes (or more) by someone with a background in the underlying
| maths looking at the issue in-depth to rebut. The information
| landscape is heavily weighted towards these grifters, and I am
| not sure how we can fix that.
| piva00 wrote:
| If you haven't ever read about and came to this thought
| independently I'd say Brandolini's law[0] is an interesting one
| for you to read about.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
| dktoao wrote:
| Thanks! I will have a read. Looks very interesting.
| alexashka wrote:
| > The information landscape is heavily weighted towards these
| grifters, and I am not sure how we can fix that.
|
| We can start with not alienating the millions of people who
| enjoy listening to Joe Rogan and like him as a person.
|
| What do you even mean by grifter and how is Joe Rogan a
| grifter? We can go back and forth on here until you are shown
| to have a very shallow understanding of Joe Rogan and the
| history of his podcast and yet feel comfortable in calling him
| a grifter - a derogatory and inflammatory term that is
| completely unnecessary in a fact based conversation.
|
| Assuming you are wrong in calling him a grifter - what gave you
| the utmost confidence to do so and is that not the _exact_
| problem you decry Joe Rogan and these other 'grifters' of
| being guilty of? Of just _saying_ shit based on personal bias
| and 'vibes'?
|
| Anyhoo :)
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Joe Rogan has a platform because he will allow any idiot on
| his show and just babble about whatever it is they want to
| talk about. He's not a journalist, he's a 3 hour ad placement
| masquerading as a podcast. Lex Friedman is even worse because
| he gives the impression that he's an intellectual but he
| plays the same game. At least you know going in that Rogan
| behaves like a meathead.
| practice9 wrote:
| One of those guys needs to be fined for the pump & dump scheme
| (with SPCE: Virgin Galactic), and the other one should be
| investigated if he was receiving money from the Russian
| government or influence agents.
| xrd wrote:
| The irony of people like this misinterpreting government data as
| they orchestrate and cheer on a change in government.
| red_hare wrote:
| In this past Friday's episode, Saks made some pretty terrifying
| statements about the FCC selling the VHF/UHF Frequencies.
|
| He seemed wildly unclear about how leasing that space by the
| FCC has worked until now and pitched it as a "fixing the woke
| media" solution.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Can you elaborate on why the FCC openly auctioning VHF / UHF
| frequencies is terrifying ?
| toephu2 wrote:
| He's not wrong?
| alexashka wrote:
| About as ironic as Linux devs recognizing Windows to be a crock
| of shit and providing a viable alternative.
|
| Yes, Linux has bugs.
| toephu2 wrote:
| What government data did they misinterpret?
|
| They correctly stated that the job numbers always get revised
| down not up.
|
| They also correctly stated that the GDP growth in the last
| quarter was largely driven by government spend, and if you take
| out the private sector, there was little growth.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| > They also correctly stated that the GDP growth in the last
| quarter was largely driven by government spend, and if you
| take out the private sector, there was little growth.
|
| The entire article is pointing out quite clearly that this,
| in fact, not correct.
|
| > They correctly stated that the job numbers always get
| revised down not up.
|
| This is also demonstrably false with like 5 minutes of
| research. This is all a matter of public record
| https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| All-In is one of the few podcasts I listen to where I don't
| exactly like the hosts and disagree with a high percentage of
| what they say. But I find them interesting, and their recent
| shilling for Trump gave me a bit more of a nuanced insight into
| what they see as Trump's strengths.
|
| I take everything they say with a huge grain of salt. It is
| incredible how confidently they talk about certain topics where
| it's clear even to an uneducated listener that they only have a
| surface level understanding.
|
| Their flip-flopping on AI - from it being the best thing ever to
| being completely overhyped and underperforming - and then back
| again - has been amusing.
|
| I enjoy their insights on slightly less hyperbolic topics like
| SaaS business models and other more mundane things. There can be
| some genuine nuggets of wisdom there.
|
| Jason sometimes pushes back on the political stuff and attempts
| to be a voice of reason (relatively speaking - though I'm
| revealing my bias there) and that can sometimes prompt some
| actual interesting debate. I probably wouldn't be able to bear
| listening at all without him on it.
|
| Mainly though I think it can be good to listen to people you
| don't agree with every so often.
| indy wrote:
| That's the best description of the All-In Podcast I've read.
|
| It's often infuriating to listen to someone being confidently
| wrong, but occasionally there are some good insights.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Agreed - I find it useful to get unfiltered insight into how
| ultra high net worth people think about the world and
| view/approach things and what sources they use to form
| opinions.
|
| I also find it useful to compare/calibrate how much about
| finance that's not VC specific (i.e. macro economics, interest
| rates, commodities, etc.) I know relative to ultra high net
| worth people.
|
| It does require active listening to spot the subtle/not subtle
| bias, errors in logic etc.
| xmprt wrote:
| > I think it can be good to listen to people you don't agree
| with every so often
|
| I 100% agree. However I don't think it's valuable to get
| information from people who misrepresent data like All-In. In
| fact it can be counterproductive to listen to people who are
| misinforming you. If I can't trust my sources then it hurts
| more than it helps. This goes the other way too - you should
| fact check the people who are on your side. In my experience
| though, when I try sampling new content from people who are
| biased towards Trump, it's easy to find hypocrisies and
| misinformation.
| mordymoop wrote:
| They make me feel like becoming super rich is achievable --
| even they could do it!
| lxgr wrote:
| There's even government infrastructure for it in most states
| and countries! They're called lotteries.
| DashAnimal wrote:
| The part i find most fascinating is that when JCal does push
| back, the YouTube comments are so disproportionately telling
| him his opinion is wrong (in a venomous way), he is ruining the
| podcast, Sacks is running circles around him, etc.
| Hoasi wrote:
| > Their flip-flopping on AI - from it being the best thing ever
| to being completely overhyped and underperforming - and then
| back again - has been amusing.
|
| One could tell they had no idea what they were discussing on
| many occasions, specifically on AI.
|
| Jason and Chamath said AI prompted them to start "coding" again
| while entertaining the notion that AI will eventually replace
| all programmers in a matter of months. One day, AI will help
| the best to become "10 X" engineers. Another day, AI is a dud.
|
| Friedberg said multiple times that everybody would create their
| Hollywood movie thanks to AI when there is little to no
| indication people would ever do this, leaving aside the
| production capability of LLMs to do so.
|
| He has no problem with large language models trained on
| copyright data but didn't even consider the ethical
| implications, conflating how humans and machines learn, which
| is rather simplistic for such an intelligent person to say. He
| then retro-pedaled in a later episode, not on that specific
| point exactly, but when he realized he would prefer his
| businesses and investments to keep their proprietary licenses
| and hard-earned know-how.
| Bhilai wrote:
| I was by a few right leaning friends that All-In presented
| neutral perspectives to political issues but after having tried a
| few different episodes, I felt that they were pretty biased for
| Trump. I heard several things which I knew were true but Sacks
| dismissed them or simply ignored them and continued with his
| circumlocution on the topic.
| alexashka wrote:
| If you understand that these people are professional politicians
| in the realm of tech - it will all fall into place.
|
| They will believe and say whatever accrues power to them. That's
| their nature.
|
| What would change if they take the podcast more seriously and
| hire fact checkers for every segment that they do? Would that
| make it all a-okay? _Shrugs_
|
| To me, the fact that they don't feel the _need_ to be accurate is
| telling. I don 't _want_ anyone helping someone that acts in bad
| faith to do it better.
|
| The better bad faith actors get at persuasion, the worse it is
| for everyone else. Look at Obama.
| senkora wrote:
| The one that I always remember is how they shilled for Solana
| immediately before it crashed hard. (I have never had any
| position in any crypto)
|
| I feel like their show has an implicit subtext where you're
| expected to understand when they are lying. You get to feel smart
| by recognizing when they're just talking their book.
|
| The tricky question is whether there is any value in the podcast
| besides understanding their book.
| seattleeng wrote:
| I think you're exactly right, it's a show for insiders to know
| what these 4 people think so the next time they directly or
| indirectly encounter them they are known quantities. Its masked
| as news & informative media but its principally brand marketing
| for these 4 people and their funds & companies.
| TwoNineFive wrote:
| Note all the comments in this thread about how bad the show is
| and how they don't trust it... but gee golly it sure is good and
| you should check it out!
| a3r5 wrote:
| real question is what is friedberg doing hanging out with these
| frauds
| rozap wrote:
| Probably also a fraud but just a bit less blatant. A subtle,
| gentleman's grifter.
| chrishare wrote:
| He seems legit to me.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| This is how baseless rumors start. You're speculating without
| a hint of evidence.
| _djo_ wrote:
| I have bad news for you.
| hfourm wrote:
| Not shocking.
| MaxfordAndSons wrote:
| Incidentally: Chamath plays a fair amount of high stakes poker
| recreationally, including on various streams and/or filmed poker
| content. I forget if it was on twitter or a Reddit AMA or what,
| but he once gave a blurb about what he had learned playing the
| game for some time, and he said something to the effect of "Poker
| is a fundamentally defensive game", which is an absurd statement.
| There is no _strategic_ bias towards offense or defense in poker,
| there is only EV maximization, which you would think a VC would
| be able to wrap their head around, but he has managed to
| fundamentally misunderstand the game.
| mp05 wrote:
| All In is pure entertainment and if you think it constitutes
| investment advice, you're the problem.
| lxgr wrote:
| Listening to five minutes of a random episode did the trick for
| me, personally.
| FigurativeVoid wrote:
| When the pandemic started, I really enjoyed the podcast. They
| seemed to have some good insights, and I found them funny. It was
| a vibe that I sorely missed being home alone.
|
| If one them sees this, I hope they take it kindly. The podcast
| has gone downhill drastically. The level of discourse has dropped
| considerably. They make all sorts of claims with very little
| evidence.
|
| Recently they have all agreed that voter ID laws "just make
| sense." But they don't even bring up any of the unpleasant
| history around IDs.
|
| When DeSantis was running, they didn't ever talk about him flying
| immigrant around as a horrible political stunt.
|
| They've been leaning closer and closer to anti vax stances.
|
| I still listen.. but I'll probably stop soon. It's becoming a bro
| podcast.
|
| David Friedberg has the best mind for evidence, and he speaks
| less and less.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I actually was of the impression that David Friedberg got a
| decent amount of speaking time in the last few episodes,
| especially in that recent one that he moderated, which I
| enjoyed since he's the most level headed, least partisan and
| most evidence based as you said of the bunch.
| linotype wrote:
| Even he's on the Trump train now.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| He mentioned on the livestream yesterday that he didn't
| vote for either and just wrote in a name.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _Recently they have all agreed that voter ID laws "just make
| sense." But they don't even bring up any of the unpleasant
| history around IDs._
|
| This year is the 80th anniversary of the passage of the 1964
| Civil Rights Act, do they really need to go through the history
| of IDs? We need to rebuild confidence in the integrity of
| elections, Voter ID, which most democratic countries require,
| seems like an incredibly modest step.
|
| The states that historically had the worst race issues all have
| voter id anyway, it is the Northeast and West coast that are
| refusing.
| troyvit wrote:
| > We need to rebuild confidence in the integrity of
| elections, Voter ID, which most democratic countries require,
| seems like an incredibly modest step.
|
| People didn't lose confidence in the integrity of elections
| because our elections lack integrity, they lost confidence
| because they were told in a way that resonates with them that
| our elections lack integrity.
|
| Voter ID would just be security theater in that it's an
| onerous rule that does nothing to help any actual problem
| aside from making things look better to some people.
| MyFedora wrote:
| I'm having a hard time understanding your comment. I'm not
| American, but can someone explain why it wouldn't make
| sense to lose confidence in elections when gerrymandering
| and the electoral college skew the results so much? Sure,
| votes are technically counted, but if the system is set up
| so that those votes don't really impact the outcome the way
| you'd expect, isn't that a pretty valid reason to feel
| disillusioned?
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| The GP isn't making a statement about how voters feel
| disillusioned in the electoral process in general. They
| are making a statement about how one of the two political
| parties has spent 4 years telling their supporters that
| the 2020 election was stolen because of rampant voter
| fraud.
|
| It doesn't even matter if you agree with the claims that
| were made about voter fraud, I can't think of any good
| faith argument by literally anyone on the political
| compass that it didn't cause people to lose faith in
| electoral process.
| a_cool_username wrote:
| Those are definitely reasonable reasons to lose
| confidence in elections and feel disillusioned, but voter
| ID laws won't help you there (which was GP's point).
| the_optimist wrote:
| There is no magic here. Ballots have no identifiers
| attached to them. Fraudulent ballots are indistinguishable
| from real ballots. Envelopes do have identifiers attached
| to them but are separated from ballots. It is not always
| necessary to submit envelopes with ballots, and batch
| integrity is not necessarily maintained or useful based on
| batch size. False registration and/or false voting can
| produce fake ballots. Ballot-level fraud resolution
| diminishes to zero, by design, in the existing system in
| order to preserve a degree of voter anonymity. Without
| registration or voting resolution, there is a very limited
| check on fraud, including high likelihood of surplus of in-
| circulation empty ballots. please explain your position in
| this context.
| the_imp wrote:
| 2024 - 1964 = 60
| avs733 wrote:
| 'its old so we can assume everyone shares the same
| information and perspective' is a bad way to do decision
| making and argumentation full stop. Topic and perspective
| independent.
|
| One of the things I used to see pushed back on, but it seems
| to have gone by the way side recently, is not citing the
| original source but rather citing the someone saying
| something about the source. Its increasingly pervasive in all
| types of research adn contributes to a giant and slow moving
| slide of meaning creep.
|
| The OP mentions that reviewing the history would inform the
| discussion. You dismissed being informed and simply provided
| a truism - specifically accepted a truism common from oen
| side. If the issue is confidence in integrity, but there
| never was an integrity issue, then fixing an integrity issue
| is neither possible nor a solution to the confidence problem.
|
| Again, I see this everywhere - from polite conversation to
| academic discourse adn it troubles me about the larger state
| of knowledge and knowing in the world.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > Voter ID, which most democratic countries require, seems
| like an incredibly modest step.
|
| As always, you should ask "what purpose does this serve?" Do
| we _need_ voter ID laws? Well, is there a widespread voter
| fraud problem? No [1].
|
| When you declare something to be "common sense", you betray
| either a lack of knowledge of why something is the way it is,
| you know why it's like that but you're willing to lie about
| it to push an agenda or you have a position of privilege
| where something doesn't affect you so you just don't care.
|
| So if voter fraud isn't a widespread problem, you should then
| ask who is pushing for this and why? Also, why are things the
| way they are?
|
| A big part is that as many as 7% of Americans don't have the
| documents required to prove their birth or citizenship [2].
| So Voter ID laws disenfranchise a right (voting) to millions
| of people.
|
| Voter ID is really about voter suppression. Why? Because you
| need ID to register and vote. If you don't have it, you lose
| that right. If you think those people are more likely to vote
| against your interests, you do what you can do make sure they
| can't vote.
|
| As a real example, Alabama has Voter ID laws but in certain
| counties that have a large black population, the DMV (where
| you would have to go to get a valid ID) was only open _one
| day a month_ [3].
|
| That's entirely intentional. Make it difficult to get an ID
| then it's less likely you'll vote.
|
| [1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-
| american-c...
|
| [2]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-
| opinion/mill...
|
| [3]: https://www.governing.com/archive/drivers-license-
| offices-wi...
| tmn wrote:
| You're going to lose people at the first point. You don't
| believe there is fraud. But others do (or believe there
| could be in the future)
| jacurtis wrote:
| The voter id laws conversation is an excellent example of one
| where they seemed to be largely off the mark. Jason tried to
| bring up some of the concerns at first, was immediately shot
| down by the co-hosts, and they never revisted the legitimate
| debates against voter ID laws.
|
| This perspective is coming from someone who largely agrees with
| their ultimate conclusion that we should have Voter ID laws,
| but there were legitimate counter-points that got missed which
| should be addressed before implementing voter-id laws.
|
| In a recent episode they went off for quite a while about
| selling off UHF and VHF frequencies which was also a pretty
| clueless claim. Sacks thinks they should auction them more
| frequently and allow startups to buy them for new technologies.
| I sort of get what he is saying, but how does that change
| anything? You are just trading one problem for another. You
| have all the same ownership problems we currently have but you
| are using it for something with arguably less public good,
| which is used strictly for profit. How would selling off the
| frequencies to Microsoft, Apple, and Google (since let's be
| honest they would have the most money to buy into these
| experimental land grabs, not some small startup) be any
| different than ABC, NBC, and CBS owning the airwaves? Yet
| somehow the group just kind of followed along with this
| groupthink concept like tech bros.
|
| I do think that they have a bit of a responsibility to fact
| check and do some due diligence on these types of topics,
| because as OP's article points out, there are a huge majority
| of their listeners who will blindly trust anything this panel
| says as gospel and truth. Many people idolize them since they
| have made a lot of money and are successful businessmen that
| they don't make mistakes. Granted that is a larger debate on
| how society is too trusting of their heroes or leaders, but it
| is still the current situation nonetheless.
|
| I used to listen to the podcast diligently. I now listen to
| between 1/3 - 1/2 of the episodes. Basically if I have extra
| time or the topics are of particular interest to me. But I will
| no longer make time for the podcast like I used to, I only use
| it to fill time I might otherwise have if I am caught up on
| other podcasts.
|
| IMO Chamath and Jason are probably the best of the group. With
| Chamath being the most informed. I have to give Jason credit
| because he seems to be the one most willing to bring up
| counter-arguments. Without Jason this podcast would just
| devolve into utter nonsense. Sacks' rants about conspiracy
| theories used to be entertaining, and I love to hear opposing
| opinions on things to better expand my awareness, but they are
| so constant and extreme now, that they are just annoying at
| this point. Friedberg is mostly a background character IMO
| which is a shame since he tends to be the most centralist and
| evidence-based of the group. But as is normal in this world,
| those level-headed opinions get drowned out by the loud people
| shouting conspiracies and anger fueled rants.
|
| The group clearly has potential as we have seen them hitting
| the potential. But they are pretty confident with their
| position as the number one podcast in the world (no idea if
| that is true or not, but that's their claim) and they seem to
| be flying pretty close to the sun as a result. It might be
| going to their heads.
|
| If they see this I would recommend they hire a research team to
| fact check them throughout the episode or to inject opposing
| opinions on things. They can afford it and if they are the top
| podcast in the world than one could argue that they have an
| ethical obligation to do so. Also limit Sacks' talking.
| Sometimes I feel like he talks for 1/2 the episode and that's
| usually when the podcast goes off the rails.
|
| Best of luck to them either way. I don't really care. There is
| a lot of great content out there that I can listen to besides
| them (and I have already started shifting towards). But I
| enjoyed them enough at their peak that if they can bring it
| back I'd be happy too.
| FigurativeVoid wrote:
| I think that voter ID laws are probably fine. I'm in a state
| that has them, and I suspect that I would feel weird if the
| requirement were repealed.
|
| I don't know if IDs are free in all states, but if they are,
| I would be more inclined to support it as a requirement for
| voting.
|
| I also would want to get an objective handle on how the IDs
| are treated. I have had friends get questioned because "Their
| signature didn't match the ID." I can see how that would
| quickly get perverted.
|
| How do you feel about their revisionism around Jan 6?
| secabeen wrote:
| > I think that voter ID laws are probably fine. I'm in a
| state that has them, and I suspect that I would feel weird
| if the requirement were repealed.
|
| > I don't know if IDs are free in all states, but if they
| are, I would be more inclined to support it as a
| requirement for voting.
|
| The IDs being free is good, but not sufficient. The ID
| issuing organization also must be funded sufficiently to
| provide comprehensive access to ID-related services to all
| citizens, regardless of disability, population density,
| cost of provision, etc.
| eschaton wrote:
| And you can be absolutely certain it won't be, because
| the reason for Voter ID laws is to disenfranchise people
| that the people making the laws don't want to vote.
| coolspot wrote:
| Voter ID laws do, in fact, just make sense.
| briantakita wrote:
| Voter ID laws don't make sense if you benefit from voter
| fraud. I have a hard time steel manning the anti-Voter ID
| stance. Especially considering that an ID is needed for most
| aspects of modern living. Don't believe me? Just ask someone
| who does not have an ID living in the Las Vegas tunnels. Life
| is extremely difficult without an ID. These people are stuck
| in a Catch-22 where they could get housing with an ID but
| need an address to get an ID.
| jmyeet wrote:
| What you have to realize is that many of these podcasts and
| forums and so on are _marketing tools_. Any honesty or insight
| is either accidental or incidental. I mean even HN is the
| marketing arm for YC.
|
| In recent years we've seen where the loyalties lie for the
| likes of Sacks and Calacanis. You see this as various SV movers
| have fallen in line politically in a way that alienates the
| majority of the workers that created their wealth.
|
| Go back 10-20 years and there was a lot of delusion in the tech
| space that companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix or
| whoever that are somehow "different" to Corporate America.
| Since the pandemic, I think all of these companies have gone
| fully mask off.
|
| You, as a tech worker, as a nuisance to these people. You cost
| money. They are doing their utmost to suppress your wages and
| create fear and uncertainty through permanent, rolling layoffs.
| It's a constant effort to get you to do more work for less
| money.
|
| The likes of Calacanis, Sacks, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Pichai and so
| on are united in one thing: solidarity with the billionaire
| class. So maybe All-In is entertaining but you should never
| forget it has an agenda to serve the billionaire class.
| capitalbreeze wrote:
| Crazy no one talks about how the argument against voter ID is
| that IDs cost money, $90 in Washington. This essentially
| becomes a Voting Tax.
| piuantiderp wrote:
| In most countries that have them, they are free. Taxes
| already paid for them. Yes, even replacements
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| One really good source I've found is Steve Ballmer's* USA Facts
| and YouTube videos Just The Facts
|
| https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-us-federal-go...
|
| *What he did to open source while CEO at Microsoft is atrocious -
| but he's putting his money to some good content and I'm all for
| that
| somethoughts wrote:
| "But I know that I won't be tuning in for the next episode of
| All-In to find out. I will not fall prey to Gell-Mann Amnesia."
|
| Not sure if the author - Michael Bateman - will ever see this but
| if he does - just a thought - it could be an interesting and
| fertile genre/substack niche to do follow analysis of their
| claims/discussions in more detail regularly as a counterpoint to
| their podcast.
|
| I found his analysis compelling and it could be popular among
| HNers.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Leading off the article with Yglesias shows the guy has little
| idea what he's proposing to discuss. Imports can reduce GDP
| because the import is imported and not domestically produced. The
| formula identifies specifically: that which is consumed
| domestically but not produced domestically is not part of
| domestic production. There is no inconsistency here at all with
| revised trade policy increasing GDP. It should be totally obvious
| and intuitive that if the same good is consumed domestically,
| producing it domestically rather than importing it will increase
| GDP, all other externalities and second-order impacts aside.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Yglesias is an idiot who has no business commenting on macro
| finance. He just as good at being confidently incorrect as
| Chamath. An entertaining example of this was his confidently
| incorrect tirade about basis points.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/13/matt-yglesias-got-confused-a...
| astrange wrote:
| Imports don't /reduce/ GDP. They don't affect GDP because they
| are not produced domestically. What you're proposing is import
| substitution (tariffs), which is bad because
|
| 1. domestically imported goods can have imported inputs.
|
| 2. reduced competition from the external good means the
| internal ones will be worse.
|
| > It should be totally obvious and intuitive that if the same
| good is consumed domestically, producing it domestically rather
| than importing it will increase GDP, all other externalities
| and second-order impacts aside.
|
| There's no situation where those can be put aside, and since
| GDP is an artificial formula you shouldn't Goodhart it like
| that.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Yglesias is just repeating arguments that have been mode over
| and over by people who do in fact know what they are talking
| about (Noah Smith makes the argument well here
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/imports-do-not-subtract-
| from-g...)
|
| The moon base example I think makes the argument very clearly.
| If you have an economy which produces nothing then it has a GDP
| of 0. If the increase imports for whatever reason, their GDP is
| still 0, which means that imports doesn't subtract from GDP,
| otherwise their GDP would be negative which is nonsensical.
|
| But all this is sort of beside the point because arguments from
| accounting identities are almost always nonsense.
| arduanika wrote:
| Way back on episode 104, which aired in November 2022, David
| Sachs mispronounced "Gell-Mann amnesia". I should have stopped
| trusting them then and there, but it somehow slipped my mind.
| jimmydoe wrote:
| Infotainment is entertainment after all. All In podcast,
| President talks about people eating pets, they are just same type
| of garbage.
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