“Here’s a reality check: Since the only way to verify Satoshi’s identity is to get the unique cryptographic key linked to the 1.1 million bitcoins in their wallet, the best anyone can do is create a compelling circumstantial case. To really close the book, your evidence must be so powerful that it would convince even those who have gone before you and squandered months of their lives in the quest. … Projects to unmask Satoshi have a kabuki-style familiarity. They’re crypto-journalistic versions of Clue, the Agatha Christie-esque board game where players identify a murderer from a fixed set of suspects.” (05/01/26)
“While she recognizes that there is a relationship between the Fed’s target interest rate and the growth rate of the money supply, she has a highly exaggerated view of the Fed’s broader ability to affect market interest rates. She buys into the fallacy, widespread not only among the general public but also among many public-policy pundits, that the Fed has tight control over nearly all market interest rates.” (05/01/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Some people are born with bad hearts, some good. As long as nobody knows which is which it is possible to insure against the risk of having a bad heart. What happens if a genetic test is invented that distinguishes people who are likely to have a heart attack from people who are not?” (05/01/26)
“Amazon’s Web Services cloud-computing platform is more profitable than all the company’s retail operations combined. And AWS sells cloud-computing services to clients throughout the American government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement: According to Forbes reporting, ICE spent at least $25 million on AWS during the second Trump administration. Amazon Web Services also holds contracts with Palantir, the surveillance-tech company behind much of ICE’s deportation operation. (And Amazon has served as an inspiration for ICE, too: acting ICE director Todd Lyons has said he wants deportations in the US to run ‘like Amazon Prime for human beings.’) That’s part of why, at Monday’s rally, non-union tech workers stood alongside unionized warehouse workers.” (05/01/26)
“The zeal of the convert can be a terrifying force to behold. An acolyte convinced of their own prior heresy will often be a more thorough inquisitor than the native-born believer. This dynamic may help explain why It’s on You by Nick Chater and George Loewenstein is so shrill and devoid of self-awareness. Having been leading researchers in behavioral psychology and economics who sought to manipulate individuals into ostensibly healthier and smarter choices — the world of ‘nudge’ theory — they are doing a righteous penance by exposing the flaws of their former discipline.” (05/01/26)
“The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais took 36 pages to explain why Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is about combating intentional racial discrimination, not allowing racial gerrymandering. However, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrapped it up in one word: ‘illegitimate.’ Jeffries was not speaking of the case, but of the court. The man who would become the next speaker of the House if Democrats retake power in November has joined other radicals in denying the legitimacy of the nation’s highest court. Just for the record, the Supreme Court did not strike down Section 2, but it said neither the law nor the Constitution allows legislators to manipulate district lines to guarantee that candidates of a particular race will be elected.” (05/01/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Alexander Williamn Salter
“Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held interest rates steady Wednesday for a third time this year, citing inflation running above the central bank’s 2% target. Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, has also recently warned of ‘higher inflation and lower growth’ this year, citing energy shocks, geopolitical risks, and a high degree of uncertainty. Alberto Musalem, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, cited those same forces as likely to result in ‘persistent above-target inflation throughout 2026,’ which would justify the central bank holding interest rates higher for longer. None of these bank officials have called for raising the inflation target. They don’t have to. The implication is clear: Central banks are preparing the public for a world in which inflation persistently overshoots 2%.” (05/01/26)
“The media theorist Marshall McLuhan became famous in certain circles for insisting that the real importance of a new tool can be found in ‘the medium — that is, all the side-effects, all the unintended patterns and changes.’ He was anticipated in this by Plato, who had Socrates hint in a story that ‘the person who produces an instrument of technology is not the same as the person who can judge whether it helps or harms those who use it.’ If that’s true, then we would expect to find the architects of AI struggling to predict and control the ends it will be made to serve.” (05/01/26)
“To put American traffic deaths in perspective, consider the Miami Marlins. Since 2012, the baseball team has played its home games at the stadium now called LoanDepot Park. The field’s official capacity is 36,742, roughly the number of Americans who die in traffic crashes every year. America loses a baseball stadium’s worth of lives to vehicular accidents every 12 months. For the first time, there’s a way to prevent many, and perhaps most, of those deaths: self-driving cars. But self-driving cars are controversial. Some worry about safety. Others worry about jobs.” (05/01/26)
