Recent Discussion
This is a cross-posting from my blog Robert's Reflections.
Setting the Scene
It was a sudden inspiration. But inspiration never came without a reason - Jo Nesbø, The Snowman (2010)
Norway can build tunnels incredibly cheaply compared to its international counterparts, as pointed out by Sam Dumitriu. The E39 Rogfast project, a 16.6 mile subsea tunnel in northern Norway began construction in 2023Q1 and is expected to be complete in 2029Q3. Once built, E39 Rogfast will be the world’s deepest and longest subsea tunnel. The cost is projected to be $1.8bn or $100m per mile; for comparison, Britain’s Channel Tunnel cost $469m per mile with Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project, the Big Dig, a 7.5 mile long tunnel, costing $1.97bn per mile.
With almost 2,000 tunnels, Norway has perfected building tunnels at...
James C. Scott says that “tragic episodes” of social engineering have four elements: the administrative ordering of society (“legibility”), “high-modernist” ideology, an authoritarian state, and a society that lacks the capacity to resist.
This is a bit like saying that the worst wildfires have four elements: an overgrowth of brush and trees, a prolonged dry season, a committed arsonist, and strong prevailing winds. One of these things is not like the others!
The book reads as a critique of “high modernism” and of “legibility” (and the former’s attempt to create the latter). And there is a grain of truth in this critique. But it should be a critique first and foremost of authoritarianism.
But Scott is an anarchist, not only politically but metaphysically. So he doesn’t just criticize authoritarianism. He...
The new Cosmos Institute is working towards a future where “AI becomes a tool for consistently expanding human freedom and excellence.”
I'm proud to be a Founding Fellow. I strongly agree with Cosmos's core values of reason, decentralization, and human autonomy. And I agree that “existential pessimism” vs. “accelerationism” should not be our only choices—we need a vision based on humanism and human agency.
Follow @cosmos_inst and @mbrendan1 on Twitter, and/or subscribe to their Substack.
We are excited to announce our September book discussion featuring Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City as part of our ongoing book series dedicated to exploring the ideas of Progress Studies.
Pathways to Progress aims to create a community of individuals committed to understanding and contributing to human prosperity. Through our discussions, we delve into technological and scientific innovation, historical examples of progress, the implications of economic growth on moral progress, and the relationship between technological advancement and societal change.
Our bi-weekly Zoom meetings focus on a selected book, culminating in a Q&A session with the author. We are proud to have hosted notable guests in our discussions in August, including an author Q&A with Tyler Cowen and a speaker event with Kurtis Lockhart, Executive Director at the Charter...
This is a linkpost: https://grantmulligan.substack.com/p/positive-sum-environmentalism
From my earliest grade school memories, lessons on the environment were uniformly focused on how humans were destroying the planet. We were driving species to extinction and creating holes in the ozone.
The environmental stories being taught from grade schools to graduate programs largely haven’t changed in more than sixty years. A student in 1970 would have cited many of the same authors and arguments as a student today. Silent Spring is still taught as a clarion call to address pollution. John Muir’s defeat at Hetch Hetchy remains the classic example of how wilderness and beauty are destroyed in the name of economic advancement. And despite years of empirical evidence disproving their theories, Malthus’ and Erhlich’s warnings that human consumption will outstrip the earth’s...
Why Elon Musk's Latest Venture is Likely to Fall Short
12-minute read
This is a linkpost; original at my Substack
Tesla Motors is going to enter the robotaxi business, and thereby increase the firm’s stock market valuation from around $740 billion to several trillions of dollars—at least according to Elon Musk. As incredible as Musk’s claim may sound, investors have learned the hard way not to bet against him. Then again, Musk falls short just as often as he succeeds.
When it comes to robotaxis, though, the former is more likely to be what happens. Why am I so confident? Because we know what it takes to succeed in that market, and Tesla doesn't have it. Tesla lacks both the necessary time, and the necessary culture.
Tesla and the Robotaxi Market
Robotaxis are...
This is a linkpost for https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/increasing-visibility
As many readers of this blog know all too well, there has been ferocious debate around California SB 1047, a bill which would enact regulations on AI. Even the “Godfathers of AI” – Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, and Geoffrey Hinton – are divided. LeCun seems to hate the bill; last month he tweeted[1]:
Excellent argument by @AndrewYNg against the ignominious California regulation SB1047, which would essentially kill open source AI and significantly slow down or stop AI innovation.
Meanwhile, Bengio and Hinton signed a letter in which they “express our strong support”:
...…we are deeply concerned about the severe risks posed by the next generation of AI if it is developed without sufficient care and oversight. SB 1047 outlines the bare minimum for effective regulation
Ever since covid forked our collective timeline, the urban doom loop has been a consistent feature of The Discourse™. Some of that has come from urbanist commentators. Some of it was picked up by online culture warriors trying to dunk on “democrat run cities”.
But for all the coverage about political mismanagement and bureaucratic incompetence, there are underlying mechanisms that have prevented cities across the U.S. from quickly adapting to the post-covid world.
For the purposes of this conversation, I’m going to focus on San Francisco. Partly because San Francisco is what I'm most familiar with, but also because lessons from SF’s experience have applicability to other cities as well.
Explaining the Doom Loop
Before 2020, downtown San Francisco (on a weekday) was packed. Something like 470,000 people used to commute...
What becomes of a country where all the educated people leave?
In the seven years between 2011 and 2018, some 10% of doctors in Bhutan left the country for good. By 2017, 88% of Nigerian doctors were considering moving abroad. In the last decade, the number of doctors seeking to leave Turkey has increased a terrifying 70-fold (with no end in sight). What does the medical sector in these countries even look like in ten years?
Policymakers are certainly concerned about this; in 2010, the speaker of Parliament in Lebanon said brain drain was “the biggest problem we face”.