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
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.
my supply of benefit of the doubt for billionaires has been exhausted
i dunno given other things altman has said i cannot be sure he meant it this way. media literacy requires media history!
November 19, 2025 at 1:34 PM
my supply of benefit of the doubt for billionaires has been exhausted
dither is definitely a strategy to get to MaxEnt
November 19, 2025 at 1:34 AM
dither is definitely a strategy to get to MaxEnt
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 18, 2025 at 10:53 PM
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).
fourier transform a song:
what's the time, kenneth?
what's the time, kenneth?
November 18, 2025 at 1:56 PM
fourier transform a song:
what's the time, kenneth?
what's the time, kenneth?
pretty sure if FRED had a series that was just a straight line vs time
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TIME
i wouldn't need mathematica any more
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TIME
i wouldn't need mathematica any more
November 18, 2025 at 1:44 PM
pretty sure if FRED had a series that was just a straight line vs time
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TIME
i wouldn't need mathematica any more
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TIME
i wouldn't need mathematica any more
larry summers is 100% the mental image that pops in your head when someone says "there was a gross old man hitting on me"
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
November 15, 2025 at 11:10 PM
larry summers is 100% the mental image that pops in your head when someone says "there was a gross old man hitting on me"
Yeah not good on the restaurants and that unfortunately may apply more broadly to the entire state. Enjoyed the experience of Sal’s in P-town. Good takeaway sandwiches in lots of places. Had good coffee for the first time in MA at Odd Meter in Salem. Personal fried clams bias. Otherwise …
If you would still like to talk shit about Boston there are AMPLE options
— boring
— NPR liberal infestation
— bad restaurant scene
— bad bar scene
— college-poisoned youth culture
— the month of March
— refuses to acknowledge that it is the northernmost suburb of the NYC megalopolis
Have at it!
— boring
— NPR liberal infestation
— bad restaurant scene
— bad bar scene
— college-poisoned youth culture
— the month of March
— refuses to acknowledge that it is the northernmost suburb of the NYC megalopolis
Have at it!
November 15, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Yeah not good on the restaurants and that unfortunately may apply more broadly to the entire state. Enjoyed the experience of Sal’s in P-town. Good takeaway sandwiches in lots of places. Had good coffee for the first time in MA at Odd Meter in Salem. Personal fried clams bias. Otherwise …
with all this compute we could simulate an entire nucleus at the quark scale but instead we get ... this
November 14, 2025 at 12:50 PM
with all this compute we could simulate an entire nucleus at the quark scale but instead we get ... this
personally think the ceiling on a salary where
• good at math
• poor social emotional growth
can work out is like $100k; those people "putting up" with you are your managers who'd make twice as much
• good at math
• poor social emotional growth
can work out is like $100k; those people "putting up" with you are your managers who'd make twice as much
I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here
November 12, 2025 at 12:42 PM
personally think the ceiling on a salary where
• good at math
• poor social emotional growth
can work out is like $100k; those people "putting up" with you are your managers who'd make twice as much
• good at math
• poor social emotional growth
can work out is like $100k; those people "putting up" with you are your managers who'd make twice as much
spent like 20 minutes trying to turn the vergence in the force dialog from the phantom menace into a thing about a financial bubble located around elon musk but then realized i am just so very, very tired of this shit
November 11, 2025 at 12:54 PM
spent like 20 minutes trying to turn the vergence in the force dialog from the phantom menace into a thing about a financial bubble located around elon musk but then realized i am just so very, very tired of this shit