Open Threads and Questions

This is a scratch list of open threads and questions that I want to dive into:

• What are the dynamics of the phrase “I summer in Basiglio” and how does class of the listener change the understanding?
  • The meaning taken by a person who is not tuned into the social elite is that this is a person of the social elite. Linguistic markers like the use of the word “summer” as a verb are not used by the general public. It indicates that this person has the means to spend a summer in some place named Basiglio, which also carries this implicit presumption that the listener knows of Basiglio.
  • The truth is that Basiglio is a suburb of Milan, not exactly a beach town where the elite typically spend their summers.
  • So if someone said this phrase to the random person, the vast majority might assume linguistically that this person is part of the social elite, but if a person of the social elite heard this, they would instantly pick up on the logical inconsistency and recognize that this person is an imposter.
  • This is largely based off my initial impressions of the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. I want to read his works more deeply to gain a deeper understanding of status signaling among the elite.
• What are the dynamics of being in an orchestra like?
  • There are a lot more musicians that want a full-time position in an orchestra than the number of spots available
    • How competitive is the audition process?
    • Once someone gets a position, is it like tenure? Or are they in constant competition to keep their spot?
• How can we resolve the core tension of homeowners wanting to maintain/increase property value and renters who want to buy a home wanting affordable housing? Is there a way out of this that doesn’t negatively impact one side? Or do we need to accept that one side will have to be negatively impacted?
• What role should competition play in one’s life? Is there a healthy amount of competition?
• What has led to short-form video with infinite scroll taking over as the medium of media consumption on smartphones? What are the effects of regular use of this? Are some people more predisposed to being addicted to this than others? If so, what are the factors that contribute to it?
• What is the “objective function” of health and fitness?
• Why do cats like chewing on plastic?
• What are the differences in the male vs female social media algorithm? Is there a difference in what vulnerabilities they target?
• What are the strongest afflictions today that are negatively impacting people?
  • Why do certain afflictions like gambling and alcoholism disproportionally impact men, while afflictions like shopping addiction and eating disorders disproportionally impact women?
• Why have essentially all societies throughout human history been patriarchal?
• What factors led to humans switching from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture? Why did the Neolithic Revolution start 10,000-12,000 years ago, and not sooner or later?
• How much of the rise in rates in anxiety and depression among the developed world can be attributed to widespread smartphone usage?
• Why are fertility rates dropping across the developed world?
  • Sweden and Norway have strong social safety nets and childcare subsidies, but their fertility rates are lower than the United States.
  • Why do politicians like JD Vance seem to be on a crusade to raise fertility rates?
• What are the factors that have contributed to the rise of gender war content on social media? What are the effects that the proliferation of this content has had on dating?
• Why does rates of firearm ownership not strongly map towards firearm violence? How do countries like Switzerland have such high rates of firearm ownership, but very low rates of firearm violence?
• Why is there a tendency across nations for men to lean more politically conservative compared to women who lead more politically progressive?
  • Why is this gap even more pronounced in Gen Z? We are observing the largest schism in political leanings across gender in the youngest cohorts
• Why are the US and China in such a race for AI development? What geopolitical forces are in play?
• Has widespread social media use decreased the epistemic rigor of the population? Or have most people just been like this?
• Does using an anti-sycophantic system prompt in AI assist in research?
  • What other mechanisms of prompt engineering would be useful here?
• How has the decrease in US manufacturing capacity impacted the US’s position in the world?
• What is neoliberalism exactly?
• How distinct is my linguistic fingerprint? What words do I use at a higher rate than the base rate and how much does that reveal who I am? I remember being told in an SAT prep class to use the word “ostensibly” in the thesis of your essay, and I used that word in almost every essay I wrote throughout high school.
• The semantic drift of the word “incel”. It used to mean a very specific type of person, but it has shifted linguistically to a broader insult of someone. What’s the reason that this happens to words?
• Why are so many internet words downstream of 4chan? e.g. incel, -maxxing, chud, chad, NPC, etc.
  • Do more strictly anonymous boards like 4chan (ones where users don’t have a username or account linked to their posting) incentivize more linguistic signaling to indicate that one is part of the in-group?
  • What mechanisms are in play that lead to these words leaving 4chan and then becoming more widespread throughout the general internet lexicon?
• What is driving the increase in NEETs? Are more men NEETs than women?
• Why are afternoon naps so stigmatized in US work culture? Why do countries like Spain practice siestas?
• Why is the price-to-income ratio of housing so high in China compared to the US despite China’s high rates of housing construction?
• What is the Chinese government’s plan for it’s low fertility rates coupled with anti immigration policies?
• Is there a causative effect of countries increasing immigration and a rise in right-wing populism?