The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 73 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Adam Robinson claims he knows more about financial markets than anyone living
“I, Adam, know more about financial markets than any other living person.”
Robinson: The concept of 'intrinsic value' in fundamental analysis is a fraud
“Intrinsic value is a fraud, and I can demonstrate that. It's a fraud for several reasons. First, I'm using air quotes. What he really meant by intrinsic value is true value. But he knows if he used the phrase true value of something, that people would say, hey…”
Robinson: Boys outperform on tests because their unpreparedness breeds psychological resilience
“And boys who tend to be unprepared, more unprepared than girls do better on standardized tests, precisely because when they run into difficulty, they expect it to.”
AI Will Exponentially Exceed Human Intelligence in Hours in New Domains
“Now imagine that computer is unleashed not in the domain of chess, but in other domains. It'll totally recreate everything we know and then go beyond it in hours. So the scary thing with AI is this, that it will become exponentially smarter than we are in minu…”
Robinson: Palo Alto Has the Highest Teenage Suicide Rate in the US
“Of all the cities in the United States, the one with the highest teenage suicide rate is Palo Alto, which is tax central, right?”
Robinson: Parental Birthplace Eliminated Racial Differences in Test Score Gains
“If your father was born in another country, and your mother was born in the United States, that student improved the same regardless of race. Race dropped out as a factor.”
Robinson: Assets continue falling when investors claim drops make no sense
“When somebody says it doesn't make any sense that X keeps going lower, Get in the trade. It's got a lot lower to go.”
Adam Robinson: Quantum Computing Will Crack Any Encryption in Minutes
“Anything that's encrypted with quantum computing, you'll be able to crack that, whatever the encryption is, in, I don't know, seconds or minutes.”
Robinson: Liberal arts breadth fails to teach thinking compared to deep mastery
“If you learn a little bit about a lot of things, you'll be able to generalize and kind of think about anything. Well, no, you won't, because you've never learned how to think. At Oxford and Cambridge, the belief is learn one thing really well, and then you can…”
Robinson: U.S. schools should focus solely on reading, writing, and math for eight years
“I think U.S. Schools would be much better off if they focused on teaching students simply how to read well and write well and rudimentary mathematics. Get that down for the first eight years. Make sure they're really good at that. And then introduce other A su…”
Robinson: Flashcards and rereading notes are totally ineffective for learning
“We, you know, we create flashcards, which are totally ineffective and we keep rereading our notes.”
Robinson: Changing Thinking Only Has Two Levers—Questions and Inspired Answers
“There are really only two ways you can change someone's thinking. You can either change the questions that person asks, or you can provide them with more inspired answers. Those are really only two levers.”
Robinson: When Markets Defy Logic, the Prevailing Trend Continues
“When somebody says it doesn't make any sense that X keeps going lower, get in the trade. It's got a lot lower to go.”
Robinson: Fundamental analysts show hubris expecting unique insights from standard MBA tools
“Every fundamental analyst believes he or she using exactly the same tools that every other and information and information that every other MBA, former MBA student has acquired reading security analysis is going to discover something no one else has discovered…”
Robinson: Bond traders are right over equity traders 99% of the time
“I would tell you that 19 times out of 20, when those two groups disagree, the bond traders are right and early. They are right and early. When I say 19 times out of 20, really I mean 99 times out of a hundred. If you want to find out when a stock is going to b…”
Robinson: Metal traders haven't miscalled interest rate direction this century
“In fact, in the last 18 years, this century, Metal traders haven't been wrong once about the direction of interest rates, either to the upside or the downside.”
Robinson: Oil is the hardest commodity to predict due to sovereign trading
“For example, the hardest commodity to predict is oil... And I will tell you that no, there is no consistent leader of those three groups, and I believe the reason for that is that oil is traded by the sovereign nations. So, so the sovereign nations that contro…”
Robinson: 80% of NYC Grade-School Test Score Variance Comes From Socioeconomics
“80% of the variation in, in, in fifth grade math and reading scores was attributable to the socioeconomics of the school, not the teachers.”
Robinson: Academic Performance Is Inversely Related to Self-Esteem
“In fact, it's academic performance is inversely related to self-esteem.”
Robinson: Rereading study notes is an ineffective waste of time
“Rereading your notes? Waste of time.”
Robinson processes information and calculates solutions through physical sensations
“But I'm actually not, I'm in my body most of the time, and I process information in my body, even when I'm reading, even when I'm thinking, even when I'm calculating. I kind of feel my way to answers, and I'm able to reason, I mean that literally, reason with …”
Robinson treats minor intuitive anomalies as major warnings and exits immediately
“Whenever things are a little strange, they're very strange. If something is, seems a little bit off, it's really off, and I don't wait to figure out, to assess the situation. I remove myself from it immediately.”
Robinson: ChatGPT is purely deductive and incapable of making novel logical leaps
“It doesn't come up with insights. It's a really good deductive analytic machine, but it's not yet capable of making logical leaps that aren't evident from the domain.”
Robinson: When AI answers everything, human edge is asking better questions
“The key thing in school right now, this is really important, it's the key to the future, it's the key for everything, not just school, is when you've got machines that can answer anything, the edge is Who asks the best questions? That's key.”
Teachers Grade Identical Essays a Quarter-Point Higher With Female Names
“The number one positive factor on on your, on the essay was a female name at the top of the paper. It was worth an extra quarter of a grade. A equals four point O, B equals three point O, C equals three point O. It was worth a quarter of a grade. It was worth …”
Robinson: Stephen Hawking Estimated a 95% Chance AI Destroys Humanity
“Stephen Hawking,
Gave mankind a one in 20 shot of surviving AI.
A one in 20 shot.
And you can do the math, that means a 19 and 20 shot, we don't survive.
AI.
That's how serious it is.”
Robinson: AlphaZero surpassed all human chess knowledge within four hours
“And in four hours, that program leapfrogged all existing human knowledge of the game, and has a chess rating of, hard to estimate, like, 36, 3700, compared with 3300.”
Robinson: Gen Z is more globally homogeneous and label-free than prior generations
“Young people, the younger generation, under 20, Gen Z, the youngest generation, is free from many of the labels that everyone over the age of 25, like male versus female, or Republican versus Democrat, or American versus non-American that bedevil political and…”
Robinson: Modern Internet Technology Operates as a Confirmation Bias Engine
“And technology is one big confirmation bias engine.”
Robinson: Tech Platforms Hijack Attention by Heightening Emotional Arousal
“Technology is designed to get us to respond, and the way to do that is to heighten emotions and hijack attention, and it does so with ferocious efficiency, and it's unrelenting.”
Robinson: Attention should only be focused on tasks or others
“There are only two places your attention should be, either on the task at hand or on others. So if you're feeling any negative emotion you feel, whether it's doubt or fear or frustration or loneliness, it's a sign to redirect your attention.”
Robinson: Technical analysis suffers from severe confirmation bias across limitless indicator parameters
“The problem with technical analysis is one of confirmation bias. The technical analyst has literally hundreds of technical indicators, and each indicator has literally limitless parameter settings.”
Robinson: Lynch's 'One Up on Wall Street' gives retail investors false confidence against pros
“The problem with a book like One Up on Wall Street is it tells the man and woman on the street, you can beat professionals at their game. Well, those professionals are, They're there, twenty-four-seven, thinking about ways to take your lunch money, right?”
Robinson: Prolonged sideways consolidation transfers assets from weak hands to strong hands
“So the third way prices change is a protracted period of nothing going on. In other words, a stock just moving sideways for months or years. And I'm using air quotes, nothing going on, because something really strong is going on, something really powerful. And…”
Robinson: Equity traders beat currency traders on FX direction 75% of time
“When Currency traders and equity traders disagree about the direction of currencies. The equity traders are going to be right on the currencies three times out of four.”
Robinson: Test Score Gains Inversely Correlate With Student Confidence
“Incidentally, and this is important improvement was inversely related to perceived chances of success. Inversely related. So you wanted a kid who said the following, I don't think I'm going to pass the test. That kid improved a lot more than a kid who said, I'…”
Robinson: The LSAT selects for single-answer pickers over nuanced thinkers
“The LSAT asks you a question. It gives you five choices, and to do well on that test, you need to be able to pick an answer quickly, an answer, not argue for two choices. Which means that the LSAT self-selects For people who are really good at selecting an ans…”
Robinson: Surprise reveals an incorrect mental model and aids learning
“Surprise is always, what surprise is telling you, Shane, is this, your model of the world is incorrect. Which is fantastic. It's a learning opportunity. That's what surprise is.”
Robinson: Memory mnemonics reduce to pictures, patterns, stories, or rhymes
“Create a picture, a pattern, a story, or a rhyme out of it. All mnemonics come back to picture, pattern, story, or rhyme, but they don't tell us that.”
Robinson: Skill acquisition requires breaking down domains and rehearsing sub-skills
“The secret to learning anything is this. Anything. I'm glad you asked that question. Rehearsing. If you want to get good at football, play football. If you want to get good at playing the guitar, play the guitar. If you want to get good at chess, you've got to…”
Robinson: Attempt practice questions before reading chapters to prime learning
“Try the sample questions at the end of the chapter before you read the chapter. Now, because what that does is it primes you. Now, now all of a sudden, whoa, how would I, there's no way I can answer those questions. Let's, now you're primed as you read the cha…”
Adam Robinson: George Soros Senses Market Trouble Through Back Pain
“George Soros famously said that when his back is acting up, That he knows something is wrong in markets.”
Adam Robinson: Capital preservation is critical because investing mistakes permanently deplete learning capital
“In a chess game, if I lose it, the next round, tomorrow, I'm the same chess player. But investing, if I've lost money today, I have less money tomorrow to invest with. And the problem with a lot of people in investing is that they're, to become a decent invest…”
Robinson: JPMorgan outperforming other banks is a slightly bearish market signal
“JP Morgan's outperforming does tell you something about those who want to look it up. It does tell you something. Sorry, it's slightly bearish, not hugely so. And when it's underperforming, it's slightly good.”
Robinson: Stupidity is overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information
“So I define stupidity as overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information, and Tim was dismissing it.”
Robinson: All advice and wisdom are fundamentally warnings
“And it's key, especially for you, Shane, is that all advice is a warning. All wisdom is a warning.”
Robinson: AlphaZero defeated top chess engine without losing a single game
“This pro, this computer program played a match against the reigning software, right, 3300. It beat it 72 to 28 in a 100 game match with no losses.”
Robinson: Top mathematicians cannot understand computer-generated proofs
“Right now, there are mathematical proofs done by computers that human beings can't understand. The best mathematicians in the world don't understand those proofs, and all they can say is, we can't find a mistake in it. It's probably right, but we're not real s…”