Humanoid robot wins Beijing half-marathon, defeating the human world record | PBS News

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/humanoid-robot-wins-beijing-half-marathon-defeating-the-human-world-record

Downtown Charleston SC near the old city market  ...but it'll cost you.

Quote from: Drastic on April 19, 2026, 06:25:12 PMIt's like 3 different groundhog days on a random cycle.

That is sort of a meme (not Groundhog Day specifically, but memes on the random repeating cycle)

Okay... back from spectating at the Quadball (aka quidditch) Nationals :-)

Let's start here

QuoteAre we headed toward a Brave New World now?

The future is not written. The reason I care about this is because I think all options are still on the table from BNW to 1984 to something far better. We get there by knowing the risks.

Aldous Huxley might say that we are there already though. He wrote BNW in the 1930s (1934?) and wrote Brave New World Revisited in about 1967 because he was surprised at the speed with which we were moving toward the world of BNW. One can only imagine what he would think today.

Side note: BNW has been a bit of a guidepost for almost my whole life. See below ====

Quotewhile there are stupid rich people, there are also stupid poor people

Agreed. That's what I meant when I said you should expect a regression to the mean if the only thing wealth conferred was the ability to buy fancy things.

Both rich and poor people can be stupid, lazy, risk averse, risk seeking, addicted.

If the GINI coefficient (measure of inequality) were low, you would expect poor people to have smaller houses, simpler cars, fewer hotel stays and trips abroad. But you would not expect wildly different outcomes for health and education.

In fact, you might expect people of lesser means to spend *more* time reading because they have less time to go to concerts and take fancy ski vacations.

But if the GINI coefficient is high, and right now it is very high in the US, you get all sorts of follow-on consequences.

One of the consequences (thanks Rupert) is an inheritocracy.

If it were true that smart/persistent and stupid/lazy is evenly distributed, then yes, some smart/persistent people would rise to the top. But you would not expect their stupid/lazy great-grandchildren to still dominate the top.

Wealth confers power. Power confers the ability to bend the system to your desire. And one of the desires of rich people is to see their children remain rich.

So you get a "biological divergence" because wealth confers power, not because wealth confers a desire to read, exercise and eat right (the three drivers in the original Gemini take on this).

Once again, I just reject the idea that the supposed drivers are the actual drivers.

The driver is the power dynamic and the first instinct of power is the preservation of power.

When we see meritocratic language, we are sometimes seeing belief in an actual meritocracy, but that is more the exception than the rule. We are more commonly seeing an ex post facto justification of the position of the elite based on their belief on what is worthy of merit.

As a general rule, the powerful tend to see agency where they often should see luck. We are all susceptible to this. In one set of experiments, they randomly assigned players in Monopoly to play by two sets of rules. One group of players got twice as much starter money, received twice as much every time they passed Go, and got to roll the dice twice for every time the other players rolled once.

When interviewed about why the won, players often cited strategy ("I got all the hotels on the Park Place block"). They took on "dominant" behaviors like fist pumps when they succeeded.

I see this all the time. I know some wealthy people who attribute their success to hard work and good decisions. They grew up in wealthy neighborhoods with good schools or went to private schoole. Their parents paid 100% of college and medical school or law school. Et cetera.

And they do work hard. The thing that is hard for them to answer is why their 60-hour weeks are worth 10X the pay of the 60-hour week of the person who mows their lawn.

As we say in the US, they were born on third base and think they hit a home run.

So, yes, there are stupid rich people and stupid smart people. But we live in a society where most rich people are immune to the effects of garden-variety stupid.

It is that immunity to stupid that allows a biological divergence over long time scales.

Quotequestion of which one is needed now and in the future springs to mind.

Perhaps. Though I don't think success tracks very well with "intelligence" anyway. Certainly not in the IQ sense.

The cocktail of character traits needed for success can take many forms. But if you're like me and you come from a stable, middle-class, loving, two-parent family in a safe and relatively prosperous part of the country where your school includes wealthy and poor and a lot of middle class, the path to success is unimaginably easier than for someone who has none of those things.

I know a *few* people who have gone from poverty to wealth and few who have gone from wealth to poverty, but in general those are highly persistent and I just don't buy the idea that the root cause is that one group reads a lot.

In my own life I see so much luck and contingency at work.

I do think Sergey Brin and Bill Gates were both exceptionally intelligent and exceptionally ruthless and you do get to great wealth that way, but like me, they started on third base.

In any case, it is not so much great wealth driving the divergence as the widespread prevalence of insufficient wealth.

Quoteas we are stuck with the capitalist system

It depends on what you mean by capitalism. Some thinkers argue that the entire framing of the Cold War and its outcome is wrong. In the contest between capitalism and socialism, capitalism did not win. Social democracy won.

Why did conservatives like Bismarck enact social programs? Why did Roosevelt? There was a competition between the systems. The USSR realized after Kruschev's visit that they *had* to produce dishwashers after the Kitchen Debate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate

Resulting in a prominent place for appliances in the Soviet's 7-year plan for 1959-1965. This was important that the CIA produced a classified report on the subject (now declassified).
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R01141A002300080002-5.pdf

So there was a dance. And that dance resulted in the death of both pure free-market capitalism and collective socialism.

We are NOT stuck with capitalism and we never have been. We have agency and there are a million simple policies that could weaken the inheritocracy, provide a more level playing field (see, even I can't write about this without getting meritocratic) and avoid a biological divergence.

This has less to do with teaching people to read, eat right and exercise as Gemini would have it and more to do with creating the conditions where lazy rich people and lazy poor people are unhealthy, and active rich people and active poor people are healthy.

QuoteHomelessness is fortunately the plight of mental illness

Two questions.

1. Why is that fortunate?

2. How sure are you of that?

We always said that in the US too and it was true that forced deinstitutionalization increased homelessness. But recent surveys here show the primary driver is affordability, even if many of the unhoused are mentally ill. It is complicated because causality runs both directions. A lot of the "mental illness" is substance abuse and, frankly, if I had to live on the streets, I want some good drugs to help me do it.

So though most unhoused people suffer from some form of mental illness, it doesn't automatically follow that's WHY they are homeless. It's a complicated question. According to one 2010 study in the UK (see below), only 26% of homeless attributed their situation to mental illness. But the nature of mental illness is that some mentally ill think they are fine and their situation is due to the CIA poisoning them for speaking the truth.

My general impression is that there are more resources in the UK, but they are still underfunded and fail to reach many.

A few quick searches...

2024: Crisis-Level Catastrophe: The UK Surpasses the US in Homelessness

QuoteThe lifetime literal rate of homelessness in the UK stands at 7.7%, which is higher than in the United States of America. This homeless rate also soars over homelessness in Belgium, Italy, and Germany, breaking all the worst records in all the wrong places...This reflects a staggering 120% increase in unsheltered homelessness over the past 14 years, a stark reminder of the human toll of the ever-burgeoning affordability crisis.

QuoteSystemic Issues: The Leading Causes of Homelessness in the UK are Comparable to US Causes

Experts point to the failure of income to keep pace with the price of housing as the leading reason so many UK residents are becoming homeless. Likewise, in the United States, a lack of affordable housing continues to cause the crisis.

https://invisiblepeople.tv/crisis-level-catastrophe-the-uk-surpasses-the-us-in-homelessness/

QuoteLike many marginalised groups, the relationship between homelessness and mental health can be two-way. Many homeless people cite mental health problems as a reason for being homeless - 26% of homeless people in the UK (this is double the percentage of that in the rest of the EU)

Unfortunately the last stat is 2010 numbers, but it is widely cited. But based on the previous article, that number might be much higher now.
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/statistics/homelessness-statistics

Anyway, my point there is simply that though my perspective is very US-biased, I don't think it only applies here. It is true that we are a much more unequal society, with a GINI of 41.8 vs 32.4 for the UK and 31.1 for Canada. We are much closer to Mexico (43.5).
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coefficient-by-country

====================

When I read BNW as a high-school sophomore, it set the tone for a lot of my politics for the rest of my life. I was an indifferent English student in high school, but my senior year, I told me teacher I wanted to "read some Socrates." He told me that Socrates hadn't written anything, but he would guide me to some writings of Plato. I read a few dialogs and then read The Republic.

My 11th grade English teacher had complained that I had never taken the book home and never done any homework (which was true). But for "book report" for my 12th grade teacher, I turned in a 30-page dialog in the style of Plato in which Aldous Huxley played the part of Socrates and Socrates played the part of the student being interrogated on the totalitarian aspects of The Republic. I wish I had saved it. That is one of the events that set me on the path to being a historian rather than an engineer.

Not much is walkable here except maybe retirement complexes. If it's walkable it's probably a big city.

We just got back from Vegas where we had some relief from the carolina heat. lol

The strait.

It's like 3 different groundhog days on a random cycle.

I was having trouble remembering this yesterday, but one explanation I've heard is stock buy backs have inflated the indexes. The person was saying that in inflation-adjusted dollars, the DJIA had not changed year of year for decades, then suddenly inflated.

Claude does not mention this in its answer

Quote1. The Index Itself Has Changed Dramatically
Tech companies, which are historically high-P/E growth companies, now dominate far more of the index than they used to. Today they hold three of the top four positions by market cap. This has come at the cost of telecom, industrials, energy, and utilities — all traditionally lower-P/E "value" sectors. In 1951, the S&P was heavily weighted toward industrials and manufacturers — slow, steady, tangible businesses. Investors pay more (relative to earnings) for high-growth companies.

2. Corporate Profit Margins Are Much Higher
Both gross and net margins have grown since the 1990s. This reflects a shift in the index itself — higher-earning, more profitable businesses command a premium, especially in a low-rate environment. raymondjames Software, platforms, and financial services have far fewer physical costs than mid-century manufacturers, so more revenue falls to the bottom line.

3. The Shift from Tangible to Intangible Assets
In 1951, a company's value lived in its factories, machines, and inventory. Today, the most valuable companies hold intellectual property, software, brand power, and network effects — assets that scale without proportional cost increases. Investors rationally pay more for earnings that can grow without heavy reinvestment.

4. Interest Rates and the "Risk-Free" Alternative
The P/E ratio, using the Gordon Growth Model, is a function of the dividend payout ratio, the expected growth rate, and the required rate of return. Marshall & Stevens When interest rates are low (as they were through most of the 2000s–2020s), the "safe" return on bonds is low, so investors accept lower expected returns from stocks — which mathematically means paying a higher price for the same earnings. In 1951, bond yields were more competitive with stock earnings yields.

5. Lower Cost and Ease of Investing
The investment industry has changed enormously. In 1940, a P/E of 15 wasn't an amazing deal for stocks — but in the modern era it may well be, because structural changes have made investing far more accessible and efficient. Substack Index funds, zero-commission brokers, and global capital flows mean enormous amounts of money are continuously chasing stocks, supporting higher prices.

6. Greater Earnings Stability and Forecasting
A higher P/E ratio suggests that investors expect higher earnings growth in the future. Marshall & Stevens Modern companies have more diversified revenue streams, better risk management, and operate in global markets. Post-war investors in 1951 had lived through the Depression and WWII — uncertainty was extreme. Higher perceived risk = lower prices paid per dollar of earnings.

The honest debate: The primary case against simply accepting higher P/Es as normal is the idea that markets may be structurally overvalued. The case for it is that changing market composition — particularly the heavier weight on high-growth tech — has reasonably driven higher average ratios over time. Current Market Valuation
In short, today's higher P/Es reflect a mix of genuinely structural changes (better businesses, higher margins, more growth) and potentially some speculative excess. Whether 30x is "fair" depends heavily on whether you believe current earnings growth rates and interest rate assumptions will hold.

One thing neither of those cover is the advantageous tax situation stocks afford.

First, there's the capital gains tax. After Reagan's 1986 tax reform, regular income and capital gains were about the same. For a high earner now, capital gains is much lower (I think 37% vs 23%)

Second, there's the fact that passing stocks to heirs allows for a step-up in basis and the estate tax exemption.

Finally, there's the borrow until you die strategy that rich people use. Granted, there are not that many rich people, but they do account for a large amount of the stock market.

So because of the tax implications, especially when using the "borrow until you die then pass it all to heirs without tax" means that stocks look super attractive to rich people looking to create dynastic wealth.

Why are P/E ratios so much higher in general than they were historically?

https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio/table/by-year

A stock price is a story people tell about the future. Musk has been terrific at telling these stories. But most CEOs are not. So why the high valuations? Is everyone just gambling? Is the stock market at an average P/E of 30 more less all just speculation?

I honestly don't understand why Tesla isn't $50/share, or less.  They have lost in their edge in the EV market, dropped a few models, the robo-taxi program is stubbornly hanging on to camera only tech and the cybertruck is generally regarded as garbage.

It has a P/E Ratio of 372 while also having declining sales for two years in a row.  How does that make any sense?