Jason Smith
@newqueuelure.bsky.social
physicist messing around with economic theory and science fiction; he/him; ALX; was @infotranecon on twitter; email is this profile's username @ gmail
bsky DMs open
econ: https://information-equilibrium.ghost.io/
sci fi: https://innerhorizon.substack.com
bsky DMs open
econ: https://information-equilibrium.ghost.io/
sci fi: https://innerhorizon.substack.com
Pinned
Jason Smith
@newqueuelure.bsky.social
· Feb 23
thread of charts i put up on twitter in 2020 about how i think about "intelligence", why IQ is silly, and why we need a social safety net
let's start: we're born with a neural network that seeks input and has a few innate specialized subnets for things we evolved to do like speak or recognize faces
let's start: we're born with a neural network that seeks input and has a few innate specialized subnets for things we evolved to do like speak or recognize faces
• burn 300 kcal on the peloton
• immediately consume 300 kcal of cheese
• immediately consume 300 kcal of cheese
a man in a lab coat with a stethoscope stands in front of a green screen that says health
Alt: a man in a lab coat with a stethoscope fades in before a green screen with an approximation of a cardiac rhythm that says "helth"
media.tenor.com
November 30, 2025 at 4:55 PM
• burn 300 kcal on the peloton
• immediately consume 300 kcal of cheese
• immediately consume 300 kcal of cheese
"no ceiling" doesn't exactly scream elite accountability to me
November 30, 2025 at 3:24 PM
"no ceiling" doesn't exactly scream elite accountability to me
losing my mind reading a skeet "old enough to remember" that "paying for cable" meant "there were no commercials"
obviously not old enough to have seen an itemized cable bill listing the channels with commercials you were paying for
obviously not old enough to have seen an itemized cable bill listing the channels with commercials you were paying for
November 30, 2025 at 3:04 PM
losing my mind reading a skeet "old enough to remember" that "paying for cable" meant "there were no commercials"
obviously not old enough to have seen an itemized cable bill listing the channels with commercials you were paying for
obviously not old enough to have seen an itemized cable bill listing the channels with commercials you were paying for
long time fans of "the floor is lava" are unhappy about the bluey generation flowing into their caldera
A game where you can do anything and they’re mad that people are doing anything.
November 30, 2025 at 2:01 PM
long time fans of "the floor is lava" are unhappy about the bluey generation flowing into their caldera
also might indicate who should really be replaced by ai
A study by Dayforce shows 87% of executives use AI for work, compared to 57% of managers and just 27% of employees.
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
Execs are embracing AI more than their employees are, new research suggests
Research from HR software company Dayforce suggests that executives are leaning into AI far more than their employees.
www.businessinsider.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
also might indicate who should really be replaced by ai
personally i don't like the feeling that ai is chipping away at the epistemological foundation of reality
Microsoft's head of AI doesn't understand why people don't like AI, and I don't understand why he doesn't understand because it's pretty obvious
Microsoft's head of AI doesn't understand why people don't like AI, and I don't understand why he doesn't understand because it's pretty obvious
Is it really "mindblowing" that people are skeptical of software that consistently doesn't do the things we're told it can do?
www.pcgamer.com
November 29, 2025 at 1:37 PM
personally i don't like the feeling that ai is chipping away at the epistemological foundation of reality
In light of horse discourse that @faineg.bsky.social started I thought it might be relevant to show baby Jason on a horse in the 80s (survived; no injuries).
November 28, 2025 at 11:01 PM
In light of horse discourse that @faineg.bsky.social started I thought it might be relevant to show baby Jason on a horse in the 80s (survived; no injuries).
Totally tangential but this just made me think of the photo postcard my great grandfather (1889-1989) got made of him with a mule and in the text to my great grandmother on the other side he captioned it “me stroking my mule heh heh”.
This is also a good question - what percent of the total population was in regular contact with horses (as rider or attendant/carer/catcher) as opposed to the percent in regular contact with cars? Again, I assume notably lower, but how much lower?
Just being pedantic and ignorant here but I wonder what percentage of people had regular access to/ownership of horses compared to the percentage now who have access to/ownership of cars. Horse/human ratio vs. car/human ratio.
November 28, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Totally tangential but this just made me think of the photo postcard my great grandfather (1889-1989) got made of him with a mule and in the text to my great grandmother on the other side he captioned it “me stroking my mule heh heh”.
Reposted by Jason Smith
I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.
November 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.
new topology example to replace the played-out donut/coffee-cup
do the spiracles mean insects are topologically planar?
November 27, 2025 at 3:18 PM
new topology example to replace the played-out donut/coffee-cup
going to upset everywhere else on earth by thanksgivingposting while upsetting this country by making thanksgiving ribs
November 27, 2025 at 3:04 PM
going to upset everywhere else on earth by thanksgivingposting while upsetting this country by making thanksgiving ribs
i love living in the universe where major publications can just write the most unhinged twitches of thoughts divorced from reality as long as they are conservative but, say, labelling fascism as fascism or bigotry as bigotry is considered uncivil
November 27, 2025 at 3:02 PM
i love living in the universe where major publications can just write the most unhinged twitches of thoughts divorced from reality as long as they are conservative but, say, labelling fascism as fascism or bigotry as bigotry is considered uncivil
remake of wall-e except the earth is covered with datacenters and lasercom ground stations; all solar powered tho
November 26, 2025 at 6:33 PM
remake of wall-e except the earth is covered with datacenters and lasercom ground stations; all solar powered tho
and a very muggy thanksgiving eve to everyone in the DMV
November 26, 2025 at 2:45 PM
and a very muggy thanksgiving eve to everyone in the DMV
noise floor hypothesis continues to hold up
November 26, 2025 at 2:18 PM
noise floor hypothesis continues to hold up
Reposted by Jason Smith
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
good illustration of what can go wrong if you try to extrapolate microscale causality to the social macroscale
while it's clear the one on the right came before the one on the left in time, it's also clear the one on the left is an essential element of the social cause of the one on the right
while it's clear the one on the right came before the one on the left in time, it's also clear the one on the left is an essential element of the social cause of the one on the right
November 24, 2025 at 1:30 PM
good illustration of what can go wrong if you try to extrapolate microscale causality to the social macroscale
while it's clear the one on the right came before the one on the left in time, it's also clear the one on the left is an essential element of the social cause of the one on the right
while it's clear the one on the right came before the one on the left in time, it's also clear the one on the left is an essential element of the social cause of the one on the right
can't really see the point of either of these men being on tv at this stage in the collapse of the fruits of the enlightenment
TAPPER: You were the deciding vote that allowed RFK Jr to ascend to the role of Health Secretary. Did you give him too much credit?
CASSIDY: The fact is the scientific community agrees that vaccines are safe. That's all I can say.
CASSIDY: The fact is the scientific community agrees that vaccines are safe. That's all I can say.
November 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM
can't really see the point of either of these men being on tv at this stage in the collapse of the fruits of the enlightenment
the chloroplast is the capitalist factory of the plant cell
November 23, 2025 at 6:44 PM
the chloroplast is the capitalist factory of the plant cell
strange three-month run of movies in 1996 i saw in the theater and ratings out of five stars:
• august: the island of dr. moreau (½)
• september: big night (★★★★★)
• october: bound (★★★★)
• august: the island of dr. moreau (½)
• september: big night (★★★★★)
• october: bound (★★★★)
cannot express how much my weekend has been improved by watching, for the first time!, BOUND (1996)
November 22, 2025 at 6:37 PM
strange three-month run of movies in 1996 i saw in the theater and ratings out of five stars:
• august: the island of dr. moreau (½)
• september: big night (★★★★★)
• october: bound (★★★★)
• august: the island of dr. moreau (½)
• september: big night (★★★★★)
• october: bound (★★★★)
having a distinct armed agency with broad jurisdiction and a mission specifically appealing to bigots and xenophobes seems like a bad idea
November 22, 2025 at 6:16 PM
having a distinct armed agency with broad jurisdiction and a mission specifically appealing to bigots and xenophobes seems like a bad idea
very neat project; this is just a comment on the visual
it just undermines "high-resolution dataset" when your graphic is jpegged out
it just undermines "high-resolution dataset" when your graphic is jpegged out
Very cool project:
“The Roman Empire’s road system was critical for structuring the movement of people, goods & ideas [yet] remains incompletely mapped… We present Itiner-e, the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire.”
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
“The Roman Empire’s road system was critical for structuring the movement of people, goods & ideas [yet] remains incompletely mapped… We present Itiner-e, the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire.”
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire
www.nature.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:21 PM
very neat project; this is just a comment on the visual
it just undermines "high-resolution dataset" when your graphic is jpegged out
it just undermines "high-resolution dataset" when your graphic is jpegged out
made a bunch of updates to this over the course of today
Continuing with the crackpot physics. What do you call a tachyon field with a positive definite energy? A swifton (n.b. not my name for it).
Swiftons
A candidate for a field that carries spooky action at a distance?
innerhorizon.substack.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:01 AM
made a bunch of updates to this over the course of today
i reference this one like once a week which i am now seeing is probably an indicator of how things are going
November 20, 2025 at 12:00 AM
i reference this one like once a week which i am now seeing is probably an indicator of how things are going
Just got Rickrolled IRL coming out of the metro.
November 19, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Just got Rickrolled IRL coming out of the metro.