Short things, kept in the open. A commonplace book, formerly rabbitholes.garden.

Poor countries seem to have stopped catching up with rich countries: The original story of divergence then convergence remains the same, despite the scope for the revised data to alter results. For the three decades leading up to the empirical literature on economic growth, the gap between developed and developing…

Kyla Scanlon is one of the most perceptive writers about the US economy and culture. Several years ago, she coined the term “vibecession” to describe the divergence between economic data and how people felt. In other words, after the pandemic, something weird started happening in the US. While economic data, despite the inflationary spike, was getting better, consumer sentiment was getting worse and worse.

Many people have proposed different theories as to why there’s a vibecession, and I’m utterly fascinated with the concept. For all its flaws, it’s a useful frame to think about many of the issues and trends that are shaping our lives. Anyways, here are a few recent posts on vibes.

Everyone is Gambling and No One is Happy.

Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know.

Theories of vibes.

I’ve been thinking about how much vibes can explain issues and sentiments in developing countries like India.

I heard that the lecture was depressing. Yet to watch it.

YouTube · youtube.com ↗2025 Nobel Prize lecture in literature | László KrasznahorkaiNobel Prize on YouTube

nobelprize.org ↗Nobel Prize in Literature 2025The Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 was awarded to László Krasznahorkai "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art"

A few links I’ve saved for later.

- [Gans and Doctorow on AI Copyright](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/12/gans-and-doctorow-on-ai-copyright.html)
- [Variation in Working Hours Across Countries and Over Time](https://www.nber.org/digest/202512/variation-working-hours-across-countries-and-over-time?page=1&perPage=50)
- [The 26 Most Important Ideas for 2026](https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-26-most-important-ideas-for-2026)
- [The Japanese Canary in the Global Debt Coal Mine](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-implications-of-japan-raising-interest-rates-by-barry-eichengreen-2025-12)
- [Agentic Interactions](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/12/agentic-interactions.html)
- [The Future Is Flesh-and-Blood](https://open.substack.com/pub/wisdomofcrowds/p/the-future-is-flesh-and-blood?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=android&r=1eft5)
- [Horses](https://andyljones.com/posts/horses.html)
- [Quantum Physics Needs Philosophy](https://open.substack.com/pub/slavoj/p/quantum-physics-needs-philosophy-ca1?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=android&r=1eft5)
- [Bag of Words, Have Mercy on Us](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/bag-of-words-have-mercy-on-us)

How to read more? Just do it! I read somewhere that authors are voracious readers. I would imagine so. When I read, I also feel the urge to create something of my own. Likewise, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a writer who doesn’t read. Come to think of it, reading and writing are one and the same. Off the top of…

This article made me laugh. Also a good example of how our behavior is shaped by deep-rooted behavioral patterns that have evolved over thousands of years under various selection pressures. This one made me laugh. Also a good example of how our behavior is shaped by deep-rooted behavioral patterns that have evolved…

Nothing is original. We’re are always copying and stealing from others.

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron:

We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don’t have our own style. Don’t worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing. Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That’s how they learn to write. (Location 1,281)

From Rob Henderson.

I was rewatching the tv show Vikings, and this part about lost knowledge stuck a chord: King Ecbert: Tell me honestly: What do you think of these works? Athelstan: I find them indescribably beautiful. King Ecbert: But they are clearly pagan! \[laughs\] King Ecbert: You are only a monk, Athelstan, and yet, somehow, I…

It might sound banal but I’m still amazed at how much good content is available for free on YouTube. Got example, here’s a list of curated channels about philosophy.

True dis. “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that…

Gemini summary: Here is a summary of the video based on the transcript. Video: How Charlie Munger Survive Life’s Hardest Moments... | Final Interview with CNBC 2023 Channel: YAPSS This video features a segment from Charlie Munger’s final interview with CNBC, where he discusses resilience, personal tragedy, and the…

This is just sad:

Both economists agree that growth is still possible, but the age of “hyperglobalisation” – with its extraordinary convergence of openness, technology, and trust – is unlikely to return.

“Growth miracles seem less likely because two of the key mechanisms – access to big, lucrative markets and willingness to share technology across borders – no longer seem to be here.” Goldberg

As global trade enters a new, more fragmented era, the challenge for policymakers will be to find fresh ways to generate dynamic gains – in a world where the rules, and the relationships, are shifting fast.

From: It would be wrong to apply Western theories of folk literature to India’s oral traditions, Kumar cautions readers. Local beliefs and worldviews seep into the songs and tales that evolve in any particular community. Moreover, in the telling of the tales and in the mode of singing as well, the local forms and…

From Autumn: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau:Thoreau) Nov. 13, 1851. To Fair Haven Hill. A cold and dark afternoon, the sun being behind clouds in the west. The landscape is barren of objects, the trees being leafless, and so little light in the sky for variety; such a day as will almost oblige a man to eat his…

A

I’m confident that AI is not going to wipe out anywhere close to 25M jobs on net over the next decade. If technological shocks caused net, long-run displacement, employment in the US would be 0. Instead, it’s among its highest peacetime age-adjusted levels. But… 1/2

…AI could absolutely drive gross displacement; think of automobiles displacing horse-related jobs even as they created new types of auto manufacturing & services jobs. That’s painful for workers, especially in the short-run & especially for workers in jobs more automatable.

Important to note however that even the amount of gross displacement from AI is highly uncertain; most of its use cases so far augment some tasks rather than replacing entire jobs.

I’m fascinated with “advice” and what counts as good or bad advice. Alex Imas said something interesting and I think I agree:

This thread by Simon is spot on. Most advice is dumb—it’s too general to be useful—and I always tell my students I have no advice to give unless it’s very specific (eg run this analysis).
But “live over your skis” is good advice.

It means aim for more than what you think you can achieve.

The quoted tweet from Simon:

Going through my mental Rolodex from 25 years of academia. The people who do great things were ridiculous tryhards, particularly early on.
Reaching further than they had a right to. As if something in their souls knew. If lucky, tutors and friends indulged this ultra cringe.

What if this version of “business as usual” reality comes true. Seems like a good frame to have in your mental toolbox when thinking about the future path of AI. in a post-AGI world, people will simply get used to the fact that computers can solve cognitive problems quickly, and beat us in any cognitive domain, just…

This is the most intellectually honest opinion to have about AI.

Philippe Lemoine

I think that if progress in generative AI continues, which I’m pretty sure it will (it doesn’t even have to continue at the current pace as long as decreasing marginal returns don’t hit too hard), cultural products will become massively diversified.

One factor that limits the diversity of cultural products is that they tend to have high fixed costs, so you need a large enough audience for them to be profitable.

But if generative AI massively reduces the cost of production, which it almost certainly will, then there should be an explosion of tailor-made cultural products.

I think this has the potential to have significant effects on society, though it’s hard to say what they will be exactly, because it means that people will have less cultural references in common.

Was watching this video and wanted to understand more so I asked Claude and Gemini: Denis Noble and Richard Dawkins represent fundamentally opposing perspectives on how evolution works, centering on what drives evolutionary change and how biological information flows. \\The Core Disagreement: Gene-Centrism vs. Systems…

A few thoughts on reading.

Timothy Gowers on using AI:

🧵 Full thread: https://x.com/wtgowers/status/1984340182351634571

I crossed an interesting threshold yesterday — one I suspect many mathematicians are now crossing. In the middle of trying to prove a result, I found a statement that looked true and would be useful if it were. Instead of proving it myself, I asked GPT-5, and in 20 seconds it produced a proof using a lemma I hadn’t heard of. I’m confident I’d have got there eventually, but it would’ve taken me about an hour. It feels like we’ve entered a brief but wonderful era where our research is greatly sped up by AI — but AI still needs us.

— Timothy Gowers

Amen!

Markets change.

Businesses change.

Technologies change.

Human nature is a CONSTANT.

Read Shakespeare to grok people…

— Josh Wolfe

Reminds me of something I’ve heard Jim O’Shaughnessy say often:

“At the centre of all market pricing are human beings. I joke the Four Horseman of the investment apocalypse are fear, greed, hope and ignorance, only one of which is not an emotion. Fear, greed and hope have wiped out more money than any market downturn. Because of all the foibles of human nature that are well documented by behavioural research – and now by neuroloigical research – people are always going to overshoot and undershoot when pricing securities. A review of financial markets all the way back to the South Sea company proves this out. As long as human nature doesn’t fundamentally change, we can continue to arbitrage the pricing inefficiencies it creates.”

“As long as human beings price securities, we’ve got something to arbitrage.”

Today in learning Johann Fust financed Gutenberg: Johann Fust (c. 1400–1466) was a pioneering 15th-century German printer, merchant, and financier who played a crucial, though controversial, role in the history of printing in Europe. He is most famous for his association with Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the…

This is an interesting take by Daniel Rock:

I don’t happen to believe AI is going to take away all of the jobs. But it is possibly a blindspot-generating issue that the people studying AI’s impacts mostly love their jobs

Built a small site to collect links to Indian literary and historical works in the public domain. While looking for books, I realized the sheer extent of our cultural apathy. Also, there are some amazing books just waiting to be read.

Visit https://dhwani.ink

Nice reflection on history: Some months later, I joined a book club. Run by Venkatesh Rao, this year’s edition focuses on a simple idea that goes a long way: Maybe grand historical paradigms like modernity and postmodernity are not suddenly emerging monoliths. Instead we might see them as “history machines” consisting…

Interesting take by Like Burgis. This is stuck in my mental craw for some reason: I would also now add a surprising element to my 2024 essay: as the cost of cognition approaches zero, that which is repeatable will be replaceable—and will indeed be replaced—by AI (a favorite saying of Palantir Co-Founder Stephen Cohen)…

Interesting article in the Economist on how AI can help customers being ripped off: The extent to which AI truly eliminates rip-off markets depends on two things. First, consumers need to know how to use AI properly. Mindlessly repeating advice from ChatGPT is less effective than using the bot as a learning tool that…