Let's track this idea and see if it pans out

NY Times Opinion: The Key Reason Trump's Poll Numbers Are Sagging, 2025-March-18 by Kristen Soltis Anderson

Shortly after the inauguration, I asked American voters how much of a priority they thought a range of policy moves should be for Mr. Trump. The very top of the list? “Reduce the cost of living.” Also high up on the list were actions on immigration, which explains why my polling has found that Mr. Trump’s immigration job approval remains positive even as his approval in other areas has grown weaker.

In contrast, “passing additional tariffs” and “firing large numbers of federal government employees” — the stuff of the headlines of the last few weeks — fall far down the rankings. Only one in four voters thought each of those items should be “one of the top priorities.” And while the numbers look more robust among Trump voters, fewer than half of them identified mass firings or tariffs as a top priority. Instead, Trump voter priorities looked just like voter priorities overall: reduce the cost of living, deport criminal illegal immigrants, secure the southern border.


Innovation in newsletters, courtesy Inbox Collective

https://inboxcollective.com/here-are-the-finalists-for-the-inaugural-inbox-awards/ 

  • Ms. Lonely Arts advice column from the Brooklyn Museum
  • Help Scout on doing better customer support
  • 8 Epic Start-up Failures, stories from the past of The Wall Street Journal
  • First name substitutes revealed by Email Love
  • Re-use the art to make stickers, posters (or napkins or placemats) from The Republic (Nigeria)
  • Ask for advice from readers, then let them vote on the ideas, courtesy Try&Reply

 

 


Stephen Kotkin on the state of international competition and conflict

Kotkin has refreshing opinions about the power of the current global states.

Stephen Kotkin interviewed by The New Yorker's David Remnick

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/what-trump-has-got-wrongand-rightabout-the-war-in-ukraine 

When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, one of David Remnick’s first calls was to Stephen Kotkin, a historian of Russia and a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He speaks with Kotkin again, as Trump is pressuring Ukraine to accept a “deal.” Kotkin doesn’t endorse Trump’s position, but notes that it reflects real changes in America’s place in the world and the limits of American power. “You can say that Trump is wrong in his analysis of the world, you can say that Trump’s methods are abominable,” Kotkin says. “But you can’t say that American power is sufficient to meet its current commitments on the trajectory that we’re on.”  


Excerpts from Tyler Cowen interview about Artificial Intelligence

Screenshot 2025-03-09 160031

My notes from listening to this March 5, 2025 interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1ztOoADp7M) are below. 

Tyler Cowen:
"...if you're not focused on the technical side, you'll see other things more clearly. Maybe over time, some of my future intuitions will be quite wrong. I readily admit that, but there are ways in which it [this focus] can be an advantage. You just focus on what is this actually good for, and not 'am I impressed by all the neat bells and whistles on this advance with AI.' But you've got to be super practical on how you address it. Don't spend too much time on the abstract [aspects]. Work with it, use it, be self-critical about what you're doing with it, and be willing to learn from other people."

When asked what would be the impact on him if AI disappeared, Tyler said, "I would just learn much less."

However, he says, humanity will face many social and structural disruptions from AI, and that could sometimes go very badly. "Being nervous is the correct point of view." 

[Tyler talks about why he is blogging more about his personal experiences and perspectives, expecting the information will be folded into the AI knowledge base.]: "When you write for the AI's, for one thing, they're you're most sympathetic reader.... They're your best informed reader--you don't need to give them much background context."

[His interviewer, David Perell, a writer, worries about what kind of human writing will still be valuable after AI. He expects that elegant* writing which helps people connect with the author and the subject will survive.] Tyler agrees. "Writers will need to personalize more."   

*Elegant is my word, not theirs. They describe this writing as short and specific. They mean it makes a quick point that know one else could make. (The best Coffee with Phil meetings contain a lot of that. That's what I listen to find.) 

Tyler requires his students to use AI, and he says their biggest mistake is not using (and paying for) the best models. He decided to skip a textbook for the class, saying it would leave plenty of money in their pocket to subscribe to a couple of the best models. He notes that, at the time of the interview, the best model is $200/month. 

They speculate that expert people will become more likely to keep secrets, to keep their knowledge out of the AI, in order to maintain their value as an expert. If people become better at 'trading secrets,' then social networks could become even more valuable. [My comment: "It's not what you know, it's who you know."] Tyler: "Your network of humans becomes not just 20% more valuable, it could be 50 times more valuable." [Than what you can learn from AI]. "The value of networking has gone up a lot more than people realize."

 


Discovered in Caroline Crampton's Newsletter

Caroline Crampton is editor-in-chief at The Browser. Her blog: https://www.carolinecrampton.com/tag/blog/

From Read Me, a newsletter by Seb Emina

I invented some words that are a bit like ‘vegetarian’, but for the increasingly urgent activity of setting limits on what we consume online:... 

Algnostic, Deskatarian, Mailivore, Realatarian, Gutenberg Guy/Girl, Yearlipian...  

To find out what they mean, go to number three on this page: https://sebemina.substack.com/p/read-me-12-inside-out-11d?ref=carolinecrampton.com