The Problem with Experts

Jordan Peterson explaining Hayek’s “knowledge problem” argument. Many experts lack humility and willingness to adapt based on new facts, especially when they are economically and bureaucratically entrenched. The crowd is often wise and many experts fail to keep tuned in:

The proposition that central planning will work is the proposition that you can substitute one expert mind for a million distributed expert minds.

That’s obviously not the case, because each person is going to have knowledge that pertains to their locality that isn’t accessible to everyone.

“So it’s much better to let everyone make the decisions and sum them.

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Bret Weinstein’s Approach to Immigration

I agree with Bret Weinstein's way of seeing Immigration:

My feeling is this. I'm not pro-immigration. I'm not anti-immigration. What I want is for people who are not corrupt, who are well-informed about the issue, to figure out what the best level of immigration is and to set up a process that works.

I don't want to see any illegals. I want to see people who come in legally. I want to see the number. Maybe it's a high number. Maybe it's a low number. I don't know, but I'd like to see the right number. I'd like us to at least aspire to it.

And then most important of all, and I see this in both England and the US, somewhere along the line, we apparently decided it was impolite to ask people who wished to come to our countries, whether they liked us and aspired to be a part of our civilization. And my feeling is whatever the number is that we should be allowing in, I don't want any who don't aspire to be American. I want people who like it, who want to make the place better and want to participate in it because they see it as good. We should not be letting people in who want to destroy it. Obviously, I can't imagine that anyone has to say that out loud, but apparently it has to be said out loud because it's not obvious to a lot of people.

And the point is, it is what I just said anti-immigrant? No, it's anti-people who hate us. And I have a right to be anti-people who hate us...

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Dismal Job Prospects for White Male Writers

I'm a race abolitionist. I think we should completely dispense with the categories of "black" and "white" and describe people in other, less destructive, terms. The only exception is that we should retain and enforce civil rights laws because some people enthusiastically categorize people in terms of "race," discriminating against some races and preferring others. I set forth my position in this acticle, ""Race" is Like Astrology."

I hope that someday, all of us will get back on track with the purpose of the original civil rights movement (rather than the absurd and destructive "anti-racism" movement) and that, someday, "race" will be the least useful or interesting thing we can say about people.

That said, "white" males are actively being discriminated against, especially against Millennials and beyond (Millenials were born between 1981-1996), especially in the creative fields, including writing. This oftentimes overt discrimination is well-documented by Jacob Savage in his article at Compact, "The Lost Generation." . Here's an excerpt:

In 2021, new hires at Condé Nast were just 25 percent male and 49 percent white; at the California Times, parent company of The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, they were just 39 percent male and 31 percent white. That year ProPublica hired 66 percent women and 58 percent people of color; at NPR, 78 percent of new hires were people of color.

“For a typical job we’d get a couple hundred applications, probably at least 80 from white guys,” the hiring editor recalled. “It was a given that we weren’t gonna hire the best person… It was jarring how we would talk about excluding white guys.” The pipeline hadn’t changed much—white men were still nearly half the applicants—but they were now filling closer to 10 percent of open positions.

Suddenly, in Andrew’s newsroom, everything was driven by identity. There were endless diversity trainings, a racial “climate” assessment—at one point, reporters were told they had to catalog, in minute detail, the identity characteristics of all their sources. Andrew had been instrumental in forming the union at his company, and objected when negotiations shifted from severance pay and parental leave to demands for racial quotas. “They wanted to do like ... emergency hires of black people,” he said.

When he questioned these new priorities, the response was swift. “On a Zoom call, women would clap back at something I was saying and other women would snap their fingers in the [chat] window,” he recalled. “It was this whole subcultural language being introduced wholesale.” ...

It’s striking how casual it all was. “Chicago Fire—the UL [upper level] can be [anyone], but we need diverse SWs [staff writers].” As in other industries, upper-level positions—writers with experience and credits—could still be filled by white men. But the entry-level jobs, the staff writer and co-producer positions that Matt and thousands of other aspiring writers were competing for, were reserved for others.

This is an excerpt from a much longer excellent article. I highly recommend reading the entire thing.

I would hope that these dire statistics don't dissuade any "white" male from pursuing their dream, of course. But this is a tough time for all creative writers, given the growing threat of AI. Grok offers these statistics showing that although Hollywood scrips are still largely being written by organics, publishers are caving to the bots: v Publishers' AI Reliance (Web, Books, Articles)

  • Web publishing: >50% of new articles AI-generated in 2025 (up from 5% in 2020), displacing freelancers in copywriting/editing; focuses on news, how-to, reviews, and SEO content.

  • Books/articles: Emerging displacement; survey of 258 UK novelists shows 51% fear full replacement, 39% report income losses (85% expect more), with 59% of genre authors' work used to train AI without permission.

  • Broader impacts: Google's AI Overviews cut traffic 34%, leading to layoffs; >25% of Americans use AI for info over traditional sources; 97% of novelists oppose AI writing full novels, citing originality/ethics losses.

  • Trend: AI replaces commoditized content/jobs, potentially making publishers obsolete; 33% of authors use AI for non-creative tasks, but mass displacement in low-creativity areas is ongoing.

Hollywood's AI Reliance for Screenplays

  • AI use is limited and experimental, mainly assistive for brainstorming, analysis, and rote tasks; full scripts remain ~100% human-written (study of 3,800 US TV episodes 2020-2023 showed 1.9% AI probability, no increase post-ChatGPT).

  • Tools like Largo.ai triple green-lighting rates and make focus groups 10x faster/cheaper; 71% of screenwriters use AI for editing by late 2025, with 76% of studios incorporating it to cut post-production time by 35%.

  • Backlash includes WGA protests over job displacement and copyright; 53% of audiences uncomfortable with AI-touched content; future seen as collaborative, not replacement.

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They Lied About Ukraine and NATO Too

After many thousands of people have been needlessly slaughtered, the truth comes out:

Amanda Sloat (Biden's top National Security Council official for Europe) recognises that if NATO had promised not to expand, then the war could have been avoided.

** This comes after our political-media establishment has for 4 years smeared, censored and cancelled anyone who claimed that NATO expansion triggered the war.

** It is strange how these people present the US as a passive actor in the question of NATO expansion, and suggest that the only alternative to NATO expansion is a Russian “sphere of influence.

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