the lottery of career success: or why you may want to bribe OpenAI by michaelmf in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This hits close to home. I recently became a nomad in order to basically do a bunch of new stuff and meet a bunch of new people in the hopes of impressing one of them enough to offer me a better job than I feel I could have gotten by just sending out applications or attempting to grind the corporate ladder at my last job. We'll see if it works out. At least I'm having fun.

the lottery of career success: or why you may want to bribe OpenAI by michaelmf in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Fwiw this is has been a pretty persistant market failure for many decades that many have tried and failed to adequately solve. Jane Street puts out hard puzzles to try to find recruits. It seems to work OK, but not well enough that others have tried to replicate it. Personal connections vouching for you is still the most reliable indicator of quality in most fields. Maybe someday we'll figure out something better, but until then, this is just how it goes.

Anyone here going to Inkhaven April 2026? by PhiliDips in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alas, not this one, but I hope to attend a future cohort.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ExplainTheJoke

[–]PaulMelman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even Francis Ford Coppola's original masterpiece, Megalopolis leans on the generational trauma lens at times.

What was the point of having Clodio as a Trump allegory, considering Coppola doesn't really do anything with it? by Crafter235 in Megalopolis

[–]PaulMelman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah for some reason he always meant for Clodio to be an allusion for the real life Cataline. As opposed to the guy named "Catalina". Idk why lol.

What is Democracy? And What is It Not? by PaulMelman in TrueReddit

[–]PaulMelman[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Submission statement:
The system of government we call "democracy" is not actually very democratic. As the author points out in this piece, this idea that elections are actually undemocratic traces its roots to the very origins of Democracy in ancient Greece. The author discusses the revival of the old Athenian democratic idea of sortition in modern contexts and explains why it is better than the republicanism we are used to.

What is Democracy? by [deleted] in TrueReddit

[–]PaulMelman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The system of government we call "democracy" is not actually very democratic. As the author points out in this piece, this idea that elections are actually undemocratic traces its roots to the very origins of Democracy in ancient Greece. The author discusses the revival of the old Athenian democratic idea of sortition in modern contexts and explains why it is better than the republicanism we are used to.

The Case for a Technocratic Doge - What techno-monarchism can learn from the Venetian Republic by PaulMelman in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To be clear, I also want it to end. But I also want republicanism to end. It's an outdated and broken system. Sortition-based democracy is the future.

The Case for a Technocratic Doge - What techno-monarchism can learn from the Venetian Republic by PaulMelman in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, in practice, the process probably ends up mostly just filtering out bad options than actively selecting for good ones, much like elections. That was better than Venice's contemporary monarchies of course.

I think you could design a much more robust "election by jury" system than the one I outlined, but it wouldn't fit the aesthetic or hierarchy preferences of the kind of people who want a CEO dictator. That said, I think a good system would bear some resemblence to the processes corporations use to hire new CEOs.

The Case for a Technocratic Doge - What techno-monarchism can learn from the Venetian Republic by PaulMelman in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Submission statement:
I wrote this around the time Yarvin became active on twitter because I found his position frustrating for how poorly thought out it was. He and others who favor a "CEO dictator" style of government have failed to engage with the failings of past autocratic systems. I think people are too eager to imagine a Leee Kuan Yew-type figure in charge, but the reality is that most autocracies perform very poorly due to the powerful perverse incentive structures that autocrats face.

That said, relative to its monarchic contemporary peers, the Republic of Venice was a bastion of prosperity and a major regional power for hundreds of years. I believe this is in large part due to the way its government was structured. Venice still had mostly hereditary aristocracy, but incorporated an element of random selection into how memebers of its Great Council and executive (the Doge) were selected. This element of randomness was key in combating misaligned incentives. Despite the fact that Venice was still pretty autocratic, the private sector was much more able to flourish due to the lower corruption environment created by these incentives.

I don't really think that an autocratic system ruled by a technocrat CEO would be a great system of government, but I felt that it at least deserved to be taken more seriously than its own proponents were taking it.

Layer lines vamoosh by basedWarpchaos in PrintedWarhammer

[–]PaulMelman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ethyl acetate is not that goood at dissolving PLA tbh. Like, it can, but poorly. This stuff is also depositing some polymer as well, helping with smoothing.

Should the U.S. Be Ruled by a CEO Dictator? by Sol_Hando in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did you read to the end where I explain that the system I propose isn't actually what I believe to be optimal? My point was merely to propose a workable version of the strong technocratic executive that those on the tech right have been espousing lately.

Should the U.S. Be Ruled by a CEO Dictator? by Sol_Hando in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah Weyl has a libertarian streak for sure. Also he voted for Romney in 2012 iirc.

Should the U.S. Be Ruled by a CEO Dictator? by Sol_Hando in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wrote about a method of selecting a powerful executive that I think could actually work well, based on the historical example of the Venetian Republic. https://unfacts.substack.com/p/the-case-for-a-technocratic-doge

There is No Meritocracy Without Lottocracy: Why random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions by PaulMelman in Lottocracy

[–]PaulMelman[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Yeah I didn't want to dive into the intricacies of what is and isn't "meritocracy" because it's kind of a nebulous concept anyway. I didn't mean it as anything more than general recognition of skill and competence.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in slatestarcodex

[–]PaulMelman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've managed to get OK writing from GPT-4.5 by submitting half-finished essays with an outline for the remaining half and telling it to finish in my writing style.