{
 "ledger": {
  "title": "Claim Ledger: You Can Win the Wrong Game for Years",
  "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/",
  "essay": {
   "title": "You Can Win the Wrong Game for Years",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/blog/the-wrong-game/",
   "published": "2026-09-14"
  },
  "last_checked": "2026-09-27",
  "format": "current",
  "counts": {
   "claims": 17,
   "by_status": {
    "VERIFIED": 11,
    "REPORTED": 6
   },
   "verified_at_primary": 11,
   "removed": 1
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "attribution": "The Durability Curve (Harry Floyd), https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/"
 },
 "rows": [
  {
   "id": "1",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-1",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "By Palmer's count there were twelve trials of scientists over their science, Galileo's among them, and only one ended in execution (Giordano Bruno)",
   "quote": "\"There are 12 total trials of scientists about science. Galileo is one. Giordano Bruno is one. Giordano Bruno is the only one executed. Of those 12 trials, only three were convicted.\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Ada Palmer, spoken, Dwarkesh Patel podcast",
   "source_url": "https://dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer",
   "locator": "Transcript, chapter \"The Inquisition accidentally invented peer review\" (01:41:21), her reply to Dwarkesh on executions",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "By her count there were twelve trials of scientists over their science, Galileo's among them, and only one ended in an execution"
  },
  {
   "id": "2",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-2",
   "status": "REPORTED",
   "status_label": "Reported",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "2026-09-13: the \"Lutherans and Calvinists … only executed one person for doing science\" sentence is the episode EDITOR BLURB, not Palmer's speech (the prior row-1 locator was wrong). The peer-review point IS also in her speech (\"they effectively invented peer review\", crediting Macuglia). Neither blurb wording is used in the body.",
   "quote": "\"The focus of the Inquisition is really misunderstood - it was obsessed with catching dangerous new heretics like Lutherans and Calvinists - it only executed one person for doing science.\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Dwarkesh × Ada Palmer — EDITOR SUMMARY",
   "source_url": "https://dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer",
   "locator": "Episode summary blurb, above the chapter list",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": ""
  },
  {
   "id": "3",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-3",
   "status": "STRUCK",
   "status_label": "Struck",
   "removed": true,
   "claim": "Inquisitors cared about the fine print of Protestant theology; a 1545 index of banned books promised to print arch-heretics' names in capitals and gave them to Calvin, Zwingli, Luther and Melanchthon; Machiavelli was not in capitals (\"not important enough from their position\"). Attributed in body to Palmer (\"She points to…\").",
   "quote": "",
   "removal_reason": "A 1545 index existed (Paris theology faculty) but was not the Inquisition's, and the capitals/Machiavelli detail could not be confirmed at a second source. The essay now uses her verbatim Lucretius letters + \"all of these fine minutiae of Protestantism\" instead (same transcript passage).",
   "source": "",
   "source_url": "",
   "locator": "",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": ""
  },
  {
   "id": "4",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-4",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Investors think buying the stocks is a bet on the technology; Dalio says it is not",
   "quote": "\"What a lot of people don't realize in bubbles is that through all technologies, they think that they are betting on the technology when they buy the stocks in the companies. That's not true.\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Ray Dalio on the All-In Podcast (reported)",
   "source_url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/ray-dalio-says-ai-investors-121700871.html",
   "locator": "Article body",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": "they think that they are betting on the technology when they buy the stocks in the companies"
  },
  {
   "id": "5",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-5",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Dalio's mechanism: technology success and company survival are different behaviours; most early companies do not survive",
   "quote": "\"There's a giant difference between the behavior of companies and the behavior of the technologies. The norm is … a lot of companies won't survive in the start. Very small percentage.\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Ray Dalio on the All-In Podcast (reported)",
   "source_url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/ray-dalio-says-ai-investors-121700871.html",
   "locator": "Article body",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": "Technology and the companies built on it are two different games"
  },
  {
   "id": "6",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-6",
   "status": "REPORTED",
   "status_label": "Reported",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "The chemical surge of an emotion clears in about 90 seconds; what sustains it past that is re-triggering it by narrating — so the game is attention direction, not fighting the feeling. HER SUBJECTIVE ACCOUNT, not controlled research",
   "quote": "\"it takes less than 90 seconds\" for the chemical rush of an emotion to surge and flush; \"anything you continue to feel is your own choosing\" (paraphrase of her framing; not controlled research per multiple summaries)",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight (via Steven Bartlett podcast; shortform summary)",
   "source_url": "https://shortform.com/blog/jill-bolte-taylors-90-second-rule",
   "locator": "Book summary; her subjective account",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": ""
  },
  {
   "id": "7",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-7",
   "status": "REPORTED",
   "status_label": "Reported",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Next-token prediction was widely called the wrong game for intelligence, and scaling that crude objective produced strong capability — so a confident \"wrong game\" verdict can itself be the targeting error when the crude game is a sufficient statistic",
   "quote": "(interpretive/argument claim; our archive's amended Law V case, not an external figure)",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "The Durability Curve's own framework",
   "source_url": "",
   "locator": "worldview.md § Law V, facet (b)",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": "For years this was the textbook wrong game"
  },
  {
   "id": "8",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-8",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "SECOND reversal case (non-AI): a crude statistic the sophisticated baseball market underpriced turned out to track winning; the A's exploited the inefficiency and the market then corrected — the \"look at the whole player\" instinct was the misread",
   "quote": "\"These methods support Lewis's argument that certain baseball skills were valued inefficiently in the early part of this period, and that this inefficiency was profitably exploited by managers with the ability to generate and interpret statistical knowledge. Consistent with Lewis's story and economic reasoning, as knowledge of the inefficiency became increasingly dispersed across baseball teams the market corrected the original mispricing.\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Hakes & Sauer, \"An Economic Evaluation of the Moneyball Hypothesis\", Journal of Economic Perspectives 20(3):173–186, 2006",
   "source_url": "https://aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.20.3.173",
   "locator": "Abstract",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": "the ability to get on base was valued inefficiently, a team that could read the statistics exploited the gap, and once the knowledge spread the market corrected"
  },
  {
   "id": "9",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-9",
   "status": "REPORTED",
   "status_label": "Reported",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "The specific undervalued skill was on-base percentage / drawing walks (the paper's body finds OBP ~2× as important as slugging for runs and wins); traditional scouts derided the statistical approach in favour of gut, five-tool, whole-player judgement",
   "quote": "(OBP-vs-SLG magnitude reported from the paper's body/AEA summary, not read in the abstract; the scouts-vs-stats clash is the documented Moneyball account)",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Hakes & Sauer (body) + Michael Lewis, Moneyball (2003)",
   "source_url": "https://aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.20.3.173",
   "locator": "Body findings + Lewis",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": "One of those stats, on-base percentage, the plain rate at which a batter reaches base, was underpriced across the market"
  },
  {
   "id": "10",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-10",
   "status": "REPORTED",
   "status_label": "Reported",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Next-token prediction looked unimpressive as a route to \"understanding\" for years and capability rose with scale over time (the GPT-2 → GPT-3/4 arc), so for a long stretch the sceptics' evidence looked like it supported them.",
   "quote": "",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "ML history — scaling-laws arc (Kaplan et al. 2020; GPT-2 2019 → GPT-4)",
   "source_url": "",
   "locator": "historical arc, not a cited number",
   "date_read": "2026-09-12",
   "in_essay": "for a long time the evidence seemed to be on their side, because the outputs were fluent and hollow"
  },
  {
   "id": "11",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-11",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Palmer's general conclusion: censors are always wrong, from our perspective, about what they should be worried about",
   "quote": "\"whatever they're looking at, they're always wrong, from our perspective, about what they should be worried about censoring\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Ada Palmer, spoken",
   "source_url": "https://dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer",
   "locator": "Transcript, same chapter (\"One fun game when I study the history of censorship…\")",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "Her conclusion is that censors are always wrong, from where we stand, about what deserved their attention"
  },
  {
   "id": "12",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-12",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Palmer's next NON-FICTION book is a history of censorship (body: \"whose next non-fiction book is a history of censorship\"; she also writes fiction)",
   "quote": "\"my next non-fiction book is gonna be a book on the history of censorship\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Ada Palmer, spoken",
   "source_url": "https://dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer",
   "locator": "Transcript, same passage",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "whose next non-fiction book is a history of censorship"
  },
  {
   "id": "13",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-13",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "The 2002 Oakland A's won as many games as the 2002 Yankees (103 each)",
   "quote": "\"a record of 103–59\" (A's); Yankees 103–58 in the standings table",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Wikipedia, 2002 Oakland Athletics season",
   "source_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Oakland_Athletics_season",
   "locator": "Infobox + standings table",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "won as many games in 2002 as a Yankees team paying about three times as much"
  },
  {
   "id": "14",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-14",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "The Yankees' 2002 payroll was about three times the A's (A's $39,679,746 vs Yankees $125,928,583 on Opening Day)",
   "quote": "\"Yankees 103-58 $125,928,583 $133,429,575\" · \"Athletics 103-59 $39,679,746 $41,942,665\" (Opening Day and August 31 payroll columns)",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Doug Pappas, SABR Business of Baseball, 2002 payroll table",
   "source_url": "https://roadsidephotos.sabr.org/baseball/02-4pay.htm",
   "locator": "payroll table, Opening Day and August 31 columns",
   "date_read": "2026-09-27",
   "in_essay": "a Yankees team paying about three times as much"
  },
  {
   "id": "15",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-15",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Prior art credited in body: Annie Duke's kill criteria pair a state and a date",
   "quote": "\"Kill criteria, generally, include both states and dates\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Annie Duke, Quit (2022), via Behavioral Scientist excerpt",
   "source_url": "https://behavioralscientist.org/annie-duke-quit-mental-models-to-help-you-cut-your-losses/",
   "locator": "Article body, kill-criteria section",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "Annie Duke builds kill criteria from the first two, a state and a date"
  },
  {
   "id": "16",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-16",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "The next-token sceptics argued the approach lacked understanding/meaning (dated examples)",
   "quote": "Bender & Koller: \"we argue that a system trained only on form has a priori no way to learn meaning\" · Marcus: \"prediction does not equal understanding\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Bender & Koller, \"Climbing towards NLU\", ACL 2020; Marcus, \"GPT-2 and the Nature of Intelligence\", The Gradient, 25 Jan 2020",
   "source_url": "https://aclanthology.org/2020.acl-main.463/",
   "locator": "Bender & Koller, abstract; Marcus, essay body",
   "date_read": "2026-09-27",
   "in_essay": "Serious people argued that a system doing nothing but guessing the next token could never understand anything"
  },
  {
   "id": "17",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-17",
   "status": "REPORTED",
   "status_label": "Reported",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Many companies that went public on the internet wave in 1999 did not survive the crash (body: \"a great many\", no figure)",
   "quote": "Webvan (IPO Nov 1999, bankrupt Jul 2001) and eToys (IPO May 1999, Chapter 11 Feb 2001) among CNBC's failed dot-com IPOs; ~4,800 of 7–10k late-90s online ventures sold or gone by mid-2003",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "CNBC, \"Failed IPOs of the Dot-Com Bubble\"",
   "source_url": "https://cnbc.com/2012/05/17/Failed-IPOs-of-the-Dot-Com-Bubble.html",
   "locator": "Slideshow entries",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "a great many of the companies that rode it into the public markets in 1999 did not survive the crash that followed"
  },
  {
   "id": "18",
   "url": "https://durabilitycurve.com/claims/the-wrong-game/#c-18",
   "status": "VERIFIED",
   "status_label": "Verified",
   "removed": false,
   "claim": "Palmer quotes inquisitors' letters: no need to censor Lucretius (only learned people can read it); what needs censoring is \"all of these fine minutiae of Protestantism\"",
   "quote": "\"We don't need to bother censoring Lucretius. Only learned people can read it\" … \"What we need to worry about censoring is all of these fine minutiae of Protestantism.\"",
   "removal_reason": "",
   "source": "Ada Palmer, spoken (paraphrasing inquisitors' letters)",
   "source_url": "https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer",
   "locator": "Transcript, censorship passage (chapter at 01:41:21)",
   "date_read": "2026-09-13",
   "in_essay": "She quotes inquisitors writing to one another that there was no need to bother censoring Lucretius"
  }
 ]
}