hello friends. post ran a bit long so recommend reading it online & not within email. also regular reminder that if the archive links aren’t working try using a vpn
1. Lynk’s direct satellite-to-phone internet service rolls out in Palau. and Astranis space internet coming to Philippines. nice
2. Sam Hammond post on ADHD, willpower & culture. discusses Joseph Heath's great 'self-control aristocracy' post, which i think about frequently. & he summarizes one key part of Patrick Deneen's critique of liberalism, on how tradition & cultural "guardrails" benefit ppl at the bottom who are least endowed with the social-psychological skills needed to succeed in our individualistic society (even as high-achieving ppl chafe at them & seek to tear them down)
3. widely shared, but this Brian Potter piece on titanium was really interesting
4. Casey Handmer on energy storage growth undermining the economic case for transmission buildout. highly plausible
5. The Economist had an excellent special report on the future of war, drawing lessons from Ukraine. here is the first post, about new technologies being deployed (Economist). all the other parts are great too: electronic warfare, logistics, civilian involvement/tech, Russian military evolution, naval combat, western military takeaways
6. and also from the Economist, a good post on seabed mining. i so much want Nauru to be rewarded economically for its leadership & willingness to ruffle some feathers here (Economist). read as well this pessimistic take on the economics. it does seem like something that probably can't thrive without substantial government financing help. & given the political incentives in most countries lacking a super direct economic stake, that will be a heavy lift (easy for politicians to throw a bone to anti-growth environmentalists by opposing seabed mining, since the industry doesn't exist yet). but there are scenarios where it really does happen, due to technology improvement/success, subsidies from key exporting countries, & demand pull because of traditionally-mined resource scarcity (Bloomberg)
7. Steady Energy, Finnish firm pursuing nuclear district heating. support (Yahoo)
8. the protein printer, speculative post about one sort of biotech end-state
9. excellent podcast episode with Eli Dourado & others about next-generation battery chemistries. none of this stuff is guaranteed to happen, & there are many skeptics. & even if big improvements are technically possible, there might be unacceptable tradeoffs with things like safety. but i think it's likely we will see at least some huge improvements that can be deployed, hopefully in things like charging speed, duration, energy density etc. EVs are here to stay & are likely to eventually dominate liquid fuel engines across all dimensions. probably eVTOLs will happen. stationary storage will keep improving, certainly at the grid level & perhaps also at the distributed level to such a degree that we'll see massive grid defection via rooftop solar & other small-scale energy systems. & small batteries enabling lots of amazing advances in electronics & robotics are likely as well, especially if supplemented by ambient solar & ubiquitous wireless charging. you don't want to get too overconfident, but energy storage is one of those "sleeping giant" foundational technologies that is probably underrated. i listened to it on youtube, but here's a Spotify link as well
10. Alex Gilbert opinion piece on space solar, arguing for a national strategy
11. a critique of the hydrogen & ammonia industrial strategy being advanced by some East Asian countries, from Seaver Wang at Breakthrough. seems reasonable. but there's still a lot of uncertainty about how the technology & economics will unfold, so i’m not as pessimistic. the case for this stuff could definitely improve. & note that a big reason why Japan & others are so keen on this isn't really for greenhouse gas reduction per se, but more geopolitics & energy security. Japan, Taiwan.. they are cursed with meager energy resources. even if large-scale clean fuels for grid power, industrial applications, shipping etc doesn’t happen in most places, you could still see a regional industry develop that’s reasonably functional, cost-effective etc. would spending all this subsidy money on nuclear (& also geothermal in the case of Japan) make more sense? perhaps. although liquid fuels have a somewhat different usage profile so it wouldn’t be a complete substitute (though if you include nuclear-powered shipping the overlap grows)
12. fun little technology alignment 2x2 from Sarah Constantin. on most things i'm a solid Optimist: far to the right (tech good), maybe halfway up in 1st quadrant (the promise of advanced technology is mostly real, & mostly happening/going to happen). i don't think the real/fake axis is all that clear or useful, though
13. i re-read this interfluidity post on the hierarchy-enforcing essence of higher ed, definite banger
14. good Brian Albrecht post on what exactly 'barriers to entry' are
15. and as long as we are on economics, read this excellent Lynne Kiesling post on markets, responding to a piece about anti-market anti-clean energy ppl (Heatmap)
16. very nice Alice Evans post on a new paper by Dietrich Vollrath & others about agriculture, economic history, conformity, culture, cooperation
17. article (LA Times) on the recent court ruling upholding federal restrictions on a local govt’s ability to restrict homeless ppl sleeping on e.g sidewalks, in public parks, & the scathing conservative dissents. i go with the conservatives on this one. and more generally this is a great example of the dysfunctional degree to which USA does public policy through the courts, especially federal courts. you can read the actual dissents here (the good stuff mostly starts on page 113). honestly law is such a joke. i mean, it's important for the functioning of our society & i don't want to burn it all down or anything. but having judges spin out these elaborate logical arguments about the precise details of when you can sleep in your van, all supposedly rooted in a single sentence in the constitution ("Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.") is just obviously absurd. it's a miracle the system works & maintains such legitimacy
18. somewhat interesting interactive map from Dept of Interior, showing projects funded by that big infrastructure law passed a while back. unusual to see territories in there. quite unrelated, but is Tableau just totally fucked by ChatGPT Code Interpreter & related tools? i know they are trying to build llm integrations to stay alive; presumably there is value in being a familiar, safe wrapper around an ai data viz/analysis engine... but for how long? would love to know if sign-up rates for Tableau certification tests are trending down. all that said, Salesforce's stock is doing fine. that might be a good sign for Tableau. or it could mean Salesforce is just well-positioned to wring out the last remaining value of a successful-but-doomed company/product category, while being positively exposed to generative ai growth on-net, via its other divisions
19. Zero Error Systems, Singaporean firm pursuing rad-hardened microelectronics for space
20. several AI related links i’ll group together
Vollrath post arguing that AI won’t cause massively-fast economic growth. some good points. i’ve really enjoyed seeing more ppl think about the micro, practical details of how AI will get integrated into firms & the economy
Tim Lee post on the professional translation industry
piece about image-to-text (or rather audio) models as an assistive device for blind ppl, generating descriptions of stuff (& incorporated into wearables). of course you eventually want bionic eyes that cure blindness & make this all unnecessary. but it will take time (Wired)
Jason Crawford post expressing skepticism of the 'basic drives' theory for AGI, i.e the inevitability of unintended power-seeking behavior
Henry Farrell post on the shoggoth meme, connecting it to previous ideas about markets & technology generally. the (Nick Land?) umbrella concept of technocapital-as-alien-god, with inhuman & uncaring drives & opaque incentives, is quite good imo. as is the related Moloch framing for collective action dysfunction. ppl make similar points about biological evolution. as long as you remember that anthropomorphizing these big forces is just a metaphor or heuristic for communication & intuition, & not meant as a serious causal description, it’s good & useful
25. a feature on oil drilling in Alaska. i want clean energy dominance but in parallel support our big beautiful domestic oil & gas industry, & would probably open up offshore arctic fields. though i'm not sure anyone would actually invest in them at this point (even Russia is hesitant to do it in a big way.. the arctic is brutal & expensive, turns out, and peak oil (if not gas) demand is coming soon. note that the archive link missed some of the fancy-formatted images but the original Bloomberg article seems to still be unlocked
26. and a good update on Latin American oil. Guyana & Brazil are winning (Economist)
27. an amusing, bleak, totally over-the-top essay (rant) about the zoomers. i'm much more optimistic (American Affairs)
28. Longshot Space, pursuing a compressed-gas-gun-to-orbit. we at the Link Nexus support every and all insane goofy unconventional space launch technology. although the company name choice may be a bit much, even for me. godspeed.
29. interesting Matt Yglesias retrospective post on covid. always worth noting that we've nowhere near done enough to prepare for & prevent future pandemics. in retrospect covid's deadliness was below some critical social threshold that's allowed ppl to basically ignore it. but you could easily have a future pandemic that hits children or something, which threatens social stability & economies in a deeper way, even if it falls short of a truly catastrophic civilization-ending plague. advanced surveillance networks (ideally with pan-genomic networked in-home tabletop testing kits), better drug & therapeutics development systems & stockpiles, NPI equipment stockpiles & hardened friendshored supply chains (bring back Puerto Rico as a pharmaceutical production hub imo), better HVAC tech & building standards, & research into next-gen tech like far-UVC antimicrobial light... all this stuff should happen & would be well worth the cost in expected value terms. some of the more extreme ideas that were proposed early in the pandemic are also worth putting a bit of money/preparation into imo, such as creating protected zones in remote cities, border testing/shutdown procedures, decentralized food/water/sewer & energy production/distribution systems for population dispersal programs etc
30. and this unnerving post envisioning a combination bioweapon/cyberattack (WSJ)
31. Oklo is SPAC'ing. Altman cashing out, perhaps. it depresses me how much fundraising needs to occur prior to even getting NRC approval to build anything. probably the fate of NuScale will determine whether Oklo can keep raising enough to survive (CNBC)
32. update on El Salvador wrt crime. this continues to be a fascinating story (WSJ)
33. amusing tweet from Tim Latimer of Fervo. it tickled me because Fervo's technical progress getting its geothermal product to market has been... slow. it does seem to be a real company making progress. but their media presence is unmatched & that’s their clear advantage, seems to me. Latimer & Fervo get multiple profiles in big media outlets every month. so i can't help reading the tweet as self-referential
34. good update on the mobile battery market, competing with diesel generators at e.g construction sites
35. i find it interesting that the 'top recruit' for a Nevada senate race has severe burn scars on his face (from an IED in Afghanistan). i have no idea whether the US elects more politicians with disabilities (broadly defined) vs other democracies. but i feel like it's quite common here & perhaps a bit counterintuitive given how much of a visual/celebrity component national politics has. just off the top of my head i can list many high-profile examples: Greg Abbott (TX governor, legs paralyzed from falling tree), John McCain (arms broken as Vietnam POW), Daniel Inouye (HI senator, arm blown off in WW2), Tammy Duckworth (IL senator, double leg amputee from Iraq helicopter crash), Dan Crenshaw (TX congressman, lost eye from IED in Afghanistan), Madison Cawthorn (former NC congressman, legs paralyzed from car crash). of course there's an obvious pattern here: veterans. military service has a long history as a stepping-stone to politics, & USA has done more constant fighting than other countries, keeping up the pipeline of decorated wounded soldiers. Franklin Roosevelt being secretly disabled has probably influenced our political culture here as well. no hot takes here, i think it’s a really positive feature of the US
36. good Josh Barro post on affirmative action & Harvard
37. charming Jon Askonas essay about 'facts', philosophy & history of science, and the new economics of knowledge under information superabundance (and Enron (?)). i can't say there were any particularly novel insights here. but from time to time, one should settle in and leisurely read long pieces about epistemology (or is this ontology? i can never tell). LW & Slate Star Codex used to meet this demand, but not so much recently. so New Atlantis will have to suffice
books
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr. a history of USA's acquisition of non-state territories (islands in the Caribbean & Pacific). quite enjoyable, though it could have been shorter (many such cases). not academically rigorous, but just entertaining with some good anecdotes. the chapter on guano — the need for which motivated many of USA's random tiny island claims — was great. i read Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism a while back which discussed US' Philippines colonialism at length, & it was rewarding to learn more on this. the book does a good job being clear-eyed about the horrible treatment of various populations by the US govt during lots of its history, as well as the general racism that shaped so much decisionmaking, without falling too far into cringe contemporary wokeness memes or critical politics (for an example of something closer to that, see this recent piece in NYTimes about Guam). plenty of military history of course; WW2 was really important for expanding USA into a global presence. the chapter on how being cut off from tropical natural resources like rubber in WW2 drove the development of synthetic substitutes via chemistry, ultimately reducing the incentive for large-scale martial colonialism, was great (also true for logistics, communications, transportation & standardization tech that laid the groundwork for globalization). in general there was a lot of great technology stuff, very much a "progress studies" book here. the big-picture takes about USA's unique form of "imperialism" were interesting: unlike maybe UK, USA's territories were/are low-profile, most mainlanders don't learn much about them in school or probably even know they exist. this includes its vast network of small military bases. i'd support statehood for all our populated territories (perhaps as a single aggregate for the Pacific islands) & would welcome 'freely associated' countries like Marshall Islands into the fold, if they wanted. Puerto Rico statehood seems inevitable; at least on a cultural level it's just so deeply American (i may be biased after living in NYC where this is most the case). one interesting thing i took from the book is how many other places could have plausibly become formal US territories or even states, but ended up not for various contingent reasons. this includes Philippines for sure, but also lots of Latin American & Caribbean countries like Dominican Republic, Haiti, Panama, Cuba, Nicaragua etc
Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future by Patrick Deneen. a followup political philosophy book to the successful Why Liberalism Failed, aiming to go beyond mere critique & actually describe Deneen’s preferred anti-market conservative Catholic localist communitarian degrowth environmentalist theocracy alternative. i use language here designed to irritate fans of Deneen, because Deneen is quite irritating. i have so much to say about this book… i may even write a proper review. but in short it was a huge mess, in multiple ways. i disagreed with most of Why Liberalism Failed, but it definitely made you think. Regime Change is much stupider & far less interesting. many other ppl have written reviews, pointing out different failings but agreeing on much. e.g:
Tyler Cowen emphasizes the lack of social science, & really any evidence
Zack Beauchamp notes the weak-shit practical reforms, relative to Deneen’s over-the-top rhetoric (a critique shared by this far-right review)
Ross Douthat's review synthesizes a bit, & also discusses the lack of practical details of how to actually achieve an elite replacement. he's more charitable than me on several points, & actually makes a better argument for Deneen's theory than Deneen himself (NYT)
Emmet Penney's review is great & highly entertaining, discussing Deneen’s weird interpretation of various thinkers & making a searing observation about the bizarre lack of US-grown intellectual theory & history (in favor of Europeans)
none of the reviews i’ve read focus on what most turned me off: Deneen’s relentless & explicit opposition to progress. the book almost completely avoids any discussion of technology, growth, economics & material wellbeing. much ink is spilled on higher education culturewar chum (Deneen is a career professor), & i got the sense that his brain has been melted by cable news or an equivalently-rotten information echo-chamber. much of his analysis of current politics & social issues is embarrassingly flawed. he’s constantly throwing out sweeping claims that are just totally wrong. Deneen’s style here reminds me of David Graeber: it's more about ingroup signalling, mood affiliation & the aesthetics of aggressive language than any kind of calm, thoughtful analysis. he’s maximally uncharitable to his enemies. just terrible intellectual habits all around. i would like now to get into the actual objectlevel meat of Deneen’s argument, but it really deserves its own long post.. for now i’ll just say, if you’re interested in post-liberal political theory, instead of Regime Change i highly recommend A World After Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right by Matthew Rose (see my micro-review here).