Great work dude. Also I want to hear Matt defend banning rude people on Facebook now, I didn’t know he explicitly disagreed. Also as someone with a graduate degree in statistics I want to know what the “literal textbook error” was since it’s not at all obvious to me.
I really really enjoyed Marc's work. His take on crypto and free speech, that apparently Matt disagrees with, were exceptional write ups! I very much would like to see more of his work in the future, be it at SB or elsewhere. And I have my fingers crossed that Matt takes up the crypto and free speech points raised by Marc, because I found them very compelling.
My biggest criticism of "Free speech for tech" and "no political preferences in algorithms" is that it in an illusion - really a Facebook marketing gimmick - that there is such a thing as an algorithimic neutral. Even if the algorithm may not be explicitly biased, there is enough asymmetry in the media landscape of left vs right (not to mention mainstream vs fringe) that neutral nonideological rules will have a biased ideological impact. This isn't an abstract fear, we have seen how it played out that way.
Either we have to go to a dumb feed (closest thing we have to neutral is transparent) or we have to adopt Matt's view that social media companies are publishers/curators that should own their editorial decision-making.
And now that I think about it, there is a 3rd libertarian-ish option which is to dramatically expand user control over their own feed (e.g. timely, popular, positive, reliable, topical, local, accessible etc)
"Some people use crypto for cybercrime, but I’d just fund the cybercrime police rather than eliminate people’s investments and ability to send each other money easily without government control."
I think the cybercrime situation is much worse than this sentence implies and probably much worse than most people are aware of. I would describe the current state of cybercrime as _complete and total lawlessness_. The problem isn't that we're not funding "cyber police", it's that we have no idea what any kind of proper defense against criminal assaults on normal people would look like.
My company was attacked by a Vietnamese software piracy gang. We were _lucky_ in that this is some of the least sophisticated cybercrime you'll run into. My boss spoke to the FBI - not because he could get them on the phone but because they had contacted him for unrelated reasons. He was told that if the value of the loss was less than $10M and it didn't touch one of their agenda items (basically: terrorism) they weren't going to touch it.
Imagine living in a world where a brick and mortar family owned business can be robbed, lose $9M of inventory, and the police go "we're not going to even open a case, this is too small for us."
So...maybe the cyberpolice are under-funded. But what would they have done? The attack originated in Viet Nam (where we think the perps were), but they fenced the goods to a very sketchy company based in Hong Kong that's incorporated under Polish law. (Polish law provides them some odd protections that make going after them even more annoying than you'd normally expect.)
We did what everyone has to do in the current situation: we defended our selves (basically, wasted our internal resources on putting up a bunch of anti-crime defensive stuff, taking away from making our product better) and kept our mouth shut because everyone's nervous to spook customers (who might already have low trust in e-commerce).
Had we not defended our selves, our credit card processors would have cut us off from the finance system like a gangrene-infected leg and we'd have taken an even bigger financial hit. Imagine a grocery where, because someone held it up and robbed the register, Visa pulls their terminals.
My point is not to play the world's tiniest violin for the company I work for - it's just to point out that (1) cybercrime is going on all the time and (2) is massively under the radar and thus hasnt' gotten the kind of "tough on crime" political response that physical crime would get and (3) is hugely helped by crypto-currencies that allow international cybercriminals to avoid state power.
It was hard enough to fight them because the tech flows over international borders, but now that they have a payment system that functions, it's really open season.
The classic progressive complaint about crypto is the environmental footprint, which is arguably down-stream of our inability to price pollution, but is still a fact on the ground in 2021. I'd argue that cybercrime should also be a big complaint, is arguably down-stream from our inability to crack down on illegal online behavior across national borders, but is also a fact on the ground in 2021.
If you want the most useless feedback in the world:
"Hearken back" is grammatically incorrect by the standards of centuries past, because the word "hark" in "hark back" is a different word sense than the one of "hark" that's a synonym for "hearken."
"Hark back" means to retrace your steps with your hunting dogs so they can catch a trail again, while "hark" as a synonym for "hearken" means to listen. My grandpa would be very upset about this because he was an insufferable pedant (he really was).
I should extend on that a bit. Since bitcoin can be mined anywhere, pricing carbon would only be effective unless it happened everywhere. Otherwise, mining would migrate to places where carbon is not priced.
I am shocked that a young, white male is in favour of unlimited free speech and cryptocurrency. This totally subverts all the stereotypes of cryptocurrency libertarians.
I make a decent living (more than I ever thought I would make, even) working for a business in a role that requires a lot of spreadsheet stuff. I have a small team of smart Excel folks who do a good job making my life much easier than it would be without them.
One thing my brain conjured up several years ago, and that I have done my level best to explain and impart to everyone who has worked for me since, is this: The presentation of information is *almost* as important as the accuracy of the information.
Make of that what you will, but I am convinced it is true and no one I have ever discussed it with has tried to argue against the idea.
For an interesting dissenting view on online speech (even though it was written pre-social-media and… it doesn’t actually talk about online speech, but I think it could easily be extended to it), you may find the first couple of essays in “Words that Wound” thought provoking, if you haven’t read them.
It’s a set of 4 essays by prominent actual critical race theorists critiquing civil libertarian first amendment doctrines around ‘hate speech’. I don’t totally buy all their arguments, but I think some of it actually makes really interesting points, and I could see some of their arguments being marshaled to make a decent argument for, say, outright banning all slurs on social media or something.
Even if you entirely disagree, I think they’re interesting arguments, and since a solid chunk of people have decided we need a moral panic over the abstract idea of critical race theory, it’s topically relevant!
Thanks for helping make these thought provoking interesting posts, and good luck on what you do next!
I love Matt, but I have to agree quite strongly with Marc on the opinions he disagrees with Matt over. I hope Slow Boring gets you next summer and beyond!
Great work dude. Also I want to hear Matt defend banning rude people on Facebook now, I didn’t know he explicitly disagreed. Also as someone with a graduate degree in statistics I want to know what the “literal textbook error” was since it’s not at all obvious to me.
I really really enjoyed Marc's work. His take on crypto and free speech, that apparently Matt disagrees with, were exceptional write ups! I very much would like to see more of his work in the future, be it at SB or elsewhere. And I have my fingers crossed that Matt takes up the crypto and free speech points raised by Marc, because I found them very compelling.
Thanks Justin!
My biggest criticism of "Free speech for tech" and "no political preferences in algorithms" is that it in an illusion - really a Facebook marketing gimmick - that there is such a thing as an algorithimic neutral. Even if the algorithm may not be explicitly biased, there is enough asymmetry in the media landscape of left vs right (not to mention mainstream vs fringe) that neutral nonideological rules will have a biased ideological impact. This isn't an abstract fear, we have seen how it played out that way.
Either we have to go to a dumb feed (closest thing we have to neutral is transparent) or we have to adopt Matt's view that social media companies are publishers/curators that should own their editorial decision-making.
And now that I think about it, there is a 3rd libertarian-ish option which is to dramatically expand user control over their own feed (e.g. timely, popular, positive, reliable, topical, local, accessible etc)
Marc, best of luck in your next endeavor!
I want to nitpick one detail of your hot takes:
"Some people use crypto for cybercrime, but I’d just fund the cybercrime police rather than eliminate people’s investments and ability to send each other money easily without government control."
I think the cybercrime situation is much worse than this sentence implies and probably much worse than most people are aware of. I would describe the current state of cybercrime as _complete and total lawlessness_. The problem isn't that we're not funding "cyber police", it's that we have no idea what any kind of proper defense against criminal assaults on normal people would look like.
My company was attacked by a Vietnamese software piracy gang. We were _lucky_ in that this is some of the least sophisticated cybercrime you'll run into. My boss spoke to the FBI - not because he could get them on the phone but because they had contacted him for unrelated reasons. He was told that if the value of the loss was less than $10M and it didn't touch one of their agenda items (basically: terrorism) they weren't going to touch it.
Imagine living in a world where a brick and mortar family owned business can be robbed, lose $9M of inventory, and the police go "we're not going to even open a case, this is too small for us."
So...maybe the cyberpolice are under-funded. But what would they have done? The attack originated in Viet Nam (where we think the perps were), but they fenced the goods to a very sketchy company based in Hong Kong that's incorporated under Polish law. (Polish law provides them some odd protections that make going after them even more annoying than you'd normally expect.)
We did what everyone has to do in the current situation: we defended our selves (basically, wasted our internal resources on putting up a bunch of anti-crime defensive stuff, taking away from making our product better) and kept our mouth shut because everyone's nervous to spook customers (who might already have low trust in e-commerce).
Had we not defended our selves, our credit card processors would have cut us off from the finance system like a gangrene-infected leg and we'd have taken an even bigger financial hit. Imagine a grocery where, because someone held it up and robbed the register, Visa pulls their terminals.
My point is not to play the world's tiniest violin for the company I work for - it's just to point out that (1) cybercrime is going on all the time and (2) is massively under the radar and thus hasnt' gotten the kind of "tough on crime" political response that physical crime would get and (3) is hugely helped by crypto-currencies that allow international cybercriminals to avoid state power.
It was hard enough to fight them because the tech flows over international borders, but now that they have a payment system that functions, it's really open season.
The classic progressive complaint about crypto is the environmental footprint, which is arguably down-stream of our inability to price pollution, but is still a fact on the ground in 2021. I'd argue that cybercrime should also be a big complaint, is arguably down-stream from our inability to crack down on illegal online behavior across national borders, but is also a fact on the ground in 2021.
Very interesting. As a crypto skeptic, I've long said the only* major application of cryptocurrency was to enable cybercrime and ransomware.
That said, thank you to Marc as well for addressing the other side of the argument. That's what makes this site worthwhile. Wishing you the best.
*I've also heard some decent arguments that it helps with remittances to some countries. Still undecided about this.
Marc, well wishes!
You should do your own substack. Maybe start as a cheap add-on to Slow Boring.
I had hoped that Marc the Intern would be the beginning of an Yglesias expanded universe / morning zoo of Slow Boring characters.
Good luck!
I enjoyed your work, Marc, best of luck in the future!
If you want the most useless feedback in the world:
"Hearken back" is grammatically incorrect by the standards of centuries past, because the word "hark" in "hark back" is a different word sense than the one of "hark" that's a synonym for "hearken."
"Hark back" means to retrace your steps with your hunting dogs so they can catch a trail again, while "hark" as a synonym for "hearken" means to listen. My grandpa would be very upset about this because he was an insufferable pedant (he really was).
"Make it pricier or illegal to burn a lot of carbon."
This seems like a flippant way to address a very heavy political lift.
Most developed countries price carbon
Those countries are not mining most of the bitcoin: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1200477/bitcoin-mining-by-country/
I should extend on that a bit. Since bitcoin can be mined anywhere, pricing carbon would only be effective unless it happened everywhere. Otherwise, mining would migrate to places where carbon is not priced.
That's that Yglesias style
I am shocked that a young, white male is in favour of unlimited free speech and cryptocurrency. This totally subverts all the stereotypes of cryptocurrency libertarians.
Thanks Marc the intern and all the best to you.
Marc,
I make a decent living (more than I ever thought I would make, even) working for a business in a role that requires a lot of spreadsheet stuff. I have a small team of smart Excel folks who do a good job making my life much easier than it would be without them.
One thing my brain conjured up several years ago, and that I have done my level best to explain and impart to everyone who has worked for me since, is this: The presentation of information is *almost* as important as the accuracy of the information.
Make of that what you will, but I am convinced it is true and no one I have ever discussed it with has tried to argue against the idea.
Good luck!
Reminds me of the quote "figures don't lie but liars figure."
Nice job, Marc!
For an interesting dissenting view on online speech (even though it was written pre-social-media and… it doesn’t actually talk about online speech, but I think it could easily be extended to it), you may find the first couple of essays in “Words that Wound” thought provoking, if you haven’t read them.
It’s a set of 4 essays by prominent actual critical race theorists critiquing civil libertarian first amendment doctrines around ‘hate speech’. I don’t totally buy all their arguments, but I think some of it actually makes really interesting points, and I could see some of their arguments being marshaled to make a decent argument for, say, outright banning all slurs on social media or something.
Even if you entirely disagree, I think they’re interesting arguments, and since a solid chunk of people have decided we need a moral panic over the abstract idea of critical race theory, it’s topically relevant!
Thanks for helping make these thought provoking interesting posts, and good luck on what you do next!
I love Matt, but I have to agree quite strongly with Marc on the opinions he disagrees with Matt over. I hope Slow Boring gets you next summer and beyond!
Thank you, Marc! This is a fun farewell post. Also, I’m an economist and I like your graphs!