Manifold

Richard Sander is Jesse Dukeminier Professor at UCLA Law School. AB Harvard, JD, PhD (Economics) Northwestern.

Sander has studied the structure and effects of law school admissions policies. He coined the term "Mismatch" to describe the negative consequences resulting from large admissions preferences.

Rick and Steve discuss recent oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions vs Harvard College and Students For Fair Admissions vs the University of North Carolina.

0:00 Rick’s experience at the Supreme Court

4:11 Rick’s impression of the oral arguments

16:24 Analyzing the court’s questions

29:09 The negative impact on Asian American students

34:41 Shifting sentiment on affirmative action

40:04 Three potential outcomes for Harvard and UNC cases

44:00 Possible reasons for conservatives to be optimistic

50:31 Final thoughts on experiencing oral arguments in person

52:12 Mismatch theory 

56:31 The future of higher education

Resources

Background on the Harvard case:

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2022/01/supreme-court-to-take-up-harvard-unc.html

Transcripts:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/20-1199_6537.pdf

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/21-707_m64n.pdf

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Peter Byrne is an investigative reporter and science writer based in Northern California. His popular biography, The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III - Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family (Oxford University Press, 2010) was followed by publication of The Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Collected Works 1957-1980, (Princeton University Press, 2012), co-edited with philosopher of science, Jeffrey A. Barrett, of UC Irvine.

Everett's formulation of quantum mechanics, which implies the existence of a quantum multiverse, is favored by a significant (and growing) fraction of working physicists.

Steve and Peter discuss:

0:00 How Peter Byrne came to write a biography of Hugh Everett

18:09 Everett’s personal life and groundbreaking thesis as a catalyst for the book

24:00 Everett and Decoherence

31:25 Reaction of other physicists to Everett’s many worlds theory

40:46 Steve’s take on Everett’s many worlds theory

43:41 Peter on the bifurcation of science and philosophy

49:21 Everett’s post-academic life

52:58 How Hugh Everett is remembered now

References:

• Many Worlds posts on Infoproc
• Conversations with Dieter Zeh
• Macroscopic Superpositions in Isolated Systems

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development. Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and is a University Professor, Columbia's highest academic rank.

Steve and Jeffrey discuss:

0:00 Jeffrey Sachs’ experience on the Lancet Commission for COVID-19

13:41 Potential for bioweapons research

19:06 Why a lab leak is plausible

32:38 Possible defenses for COVID coverup

43:56 Government secrecy and other areas of concern

48:08 Reflections on Nord Stream sabotage

Resources:

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19

pandemic, Sachs et al., Sept. 14 2022: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext

Why the Chair of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission Thinks The US

Government Is Preventing a Real Investigation Into the Pandemic,

Current Affairs, Aug 3 2022: https://www.jeffsachs.org/interviewsandmedia/64rtmykxdl56ehbjwy37m5hfahwnm5

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Rob Henderson grew up in foster homes in California, joined the Air Force at 17, attended Yale on the G.I. Bill, and is currently a Gates Fellow at Cambridge University (UK). He is an acute observer of American society and has coined the term Luxury Beliefs to describe ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.

Steve and Rob discuss:

00:00 Early life and foster experience

20:21 Rob’s experience in the Air Force

31:26 Transitioning from the Air Force to Yale and then Cambridge

44:04 Dating and socializing as an older student

50:06 Reflections on the Yale Halloween email controversy

1:01:10 Personal incentives and careerists in higher education

1:09:45 Luxury beliefs and how they show up in elite institutions

1:31:08 Age and moral judgments

1:42:50 Rob on resisting legacy academia and his future

Links:

Rob's substack

https://robkhenderson.substack.com/

Luxury Beliefs are the Latest Status Symbol for Rich Americans

https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-status-symbol-for-rich-americans/

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Professor Lyle Goldstein recently retired after 20 years of service on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College (NWC). During his career at NWC, he founded the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) and has been awarded the Superior Civilian Service Medal for this achievement. He has written or edited seven books on Chinese strategy and is at work on a book-length project that examines the nature of China-Russia relations in the 21st century. He has a longstanding interest in great power politics, military competition, and security in the pacific region.

Goldstein is Director of Asia Engagement at the Washington think-tank Defense Priorities, which advocates for realism and restraint in U.S.defense policy, and also a visiting professor at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He earned a PhD at Princeton, an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and an AB from Harvard. He is fluent in both Chinese and Russian.

Steve and Lyle discuss:

00:00 Early life and background

18:03 Goldstein’s dissertation on China’s nuclear strategy

37:35 Pushback on “Meeting China Halfway”

41:24 Could the U.S. have prevented war in Ukraine?

46:05 How territorial conflicts are influencing China’s relationship with Russia

1:00:16 Analyzing war games with U.S., China, and Taiwan

Links:

Watson Institute, Brown University

https://watson.brown.edu/china/people/lyle-goldstein

Meeting China Halfway (2015)

https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-China-Halfway-Emerging-US-China/dp/162616634X

Here's Why War With China Could Elevate to Nuclear Strikes

The National Interest, January 29 2022

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/heres-why-war-china-could-elevate-nuclear-strikes-200099

Goldstein's articles at The National Interest

https://nationalinterest.org/profile/lyle-j-goldstein

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

The guest for this episode is a recent graduate of Harvard College, now pursuing a STEM PhD at another elite university. We have withheld his identity so that he can speak candidly.

Steve and his guest discuss:

0:00 Anonymous student’s academic background and admission to Harvard

21:37 Intellectual curiosity at Harvard

29:36 Academic rigor at Harvard and the difference between classes in STEM and the humanities

46:47 Access to tenured professors at Harvard

50:08 The benefits of the Harvard connection and wider pool of opportunities

58:46 Competing with off-scale students 

1:00:48 Ideological climate on campus, wokeism, and controversial public speakers

1:23:11 Dating at Harvard

1:26:52 Z-scores and other metrics to add to the admissions process

Harvard Admissions and Meritocracy:

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/11/defining-merit.html

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-is-best-for-harvard.html

Harvard Affirmative Action Lawsuit:

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2022/01/supreme-court-to-take-up-harvard-unc.html

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2019/09/former-yale-law-dean-on-harvard-anti.html

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/06/harvard-office-of-institutional_21.html

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Richard Lowery is a professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Austin. In this conversation, he describes the ideological climate of his university and the consequent negative effects on undergraduate education and freedom of expression on campus.

Links:

Richard Lowery at UT Austin:

https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-directory/james-lowery/

National Review coverage:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-brave-prof-fights-the-woke-faculty-at-university-of-texas/

Academic Freedom in Crisis:

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/04/academic-freedom-in-crisis-punishment.html

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Tim Palmer is Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, and a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Martin Institute.

He is interested in the predictability and dynamics of weather and climate, including extreme events.

He was involved in the first five IPCC assessment reports and was co-chair of the international scientific steering group of the World Climate Research Programme project (CLIVAR) on climate variability and predictability.

After completing his DPhil at Oxford in theoretical physics, Tim worked at the UK Meteorological Office and later the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. For a large part of his career, Tim has developed ensemble methods for predicting uncertainty in weather and climate forecasts.

In 2020 Tim was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences.

Steve, Corey Washington, and Tim first discuss his career path from physics to climate research and then explore the science of climate modeling and the main uncertainties in state-of-the-art models.

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 Introduction

1:48 Tim Palmer's background and transition from general relativity to climate modeling

15:13 Climate modeling uncertainty

46:41 Navier-Stokes equations in climate modeling

53:37 Where climate change is an existential risk

1:01:26 Investment in climate research

Links:

Tim Palmer (Oxford University)
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/find-an-expert/professor-tim-palmer

The scientific challenge of understanding and estimating climate change (2019)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1906691116

ExtremeEarth
https://extremeearth.eu/

Physicist Steve Koonin on climate change
https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/04/how-physicist-became-climate-truth.html

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.

Kishore Mahbubani is Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. 

Kishore enjoyed two distinct careers: in diplomacy (1971 to 2004) and in academia (2004 to 2019). He is a prolific writer and speaker on geopolitics and East-West relations.

He was twice Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and served as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. 

Mr. Mahbubani joined academia in 2004, when he was appointed the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School), NUS. He was Dean from 2004 to 2017.

In this episode Steve and Kishore discuss:

0:00 Introduction

2:52 Upbringing in Singapore and Asia's rise

11:35 How western thinking influences China-U.S. relations

23:05 Is China a threat to U.S. hegemony in Asia?

25:52 The United States' long-term strategy for China

32:13 How trade with ASEAN influences U.S.-China relations

40:58 Can ASEAN countries play a diplomatic role between U.S. and China

43:05 Xi Jinping's leadership and the zero-sum view of China

Links:

Can Asians Think? - https://mahbubani.net/can-asians-think/

The Asian 21st Century - https://mahbubani.net/the-asian-21st-century/

Has China Won? - https://mahbubani.net/has-china-won/

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models. 

Mechanize is hiring! 

https://mechanize.work/b/hsu 

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists. 

For example: 

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors  $500K salary 

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve  $300K salary 

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.