Links and tweets, 2023-07-20
“A goddess enthroned on a car”
by Jason Crawford · July 20, 2023 · 2 min read
Opportunities
- The Roots of Progress Blog-Building Intensive endorsed by @sapinker, @vpostrel, @johanknorberg, @CharlesCMann, @antonhowes, @s8mb, @kevin2kelly, @Marian_L_Tupy, @atrembath, @jposhaughnessy, @eric_is_weird, @CJHandmer, @srajagopalan, @s_r_constantin, @danielgolliher, @krishnanrohit, and @krisgulati
- Progress studies meetup in Miami on Saturday, July 22
- Progress studies reading group (via @jayendra_ram)
- Hollywood for Intellectuals: Writing Big Ideas for the Big (and Small) Screen
- University of Austin’s summer high school program (via @mbateman, who will be teaching there)
- Sid Sijbrandij wants a postdoc to help him learn about incentive structures
- Loyal (longevity startup) starting to look for a board member
Announcements
- Elon Musk announces x.ai (via @pitdesi)
- Claude 2 improves performance in coding, math and reasoning (via @AnthropicAI)
- Major new AI alignment effort from OpenAI (via @janleike)
- Fundraiser for an asylum-seeker who left Russia rather than fight Ukraine (organized by @Marian_L_Tupy)
Audio & video
- Very good Kevin Esvelt talk on securing DNA synthesis against misuse
- Panel discussion on fundamental research featuring me and others (via @PrimeMoversLab, recorded last October but just published)
- Nick Touran (@whatisnuclear) has been scanning old film of nuclear reactors: here’s one about a reactor that powered a military radar station and one about a prototype nuclear cargo ship
Other links
- A “protein printer” could “change biology as much as printers changed the news.” Related, “DNA printers are on the cusp of a big upgrade”
- “The power to maintain is the power to improve.” Stewart Brand on auto maintenance
- The prospects of molecular manufacturing (via @annasofialesiv)
- Cleaning wool in classical times (via @NadyaWilliams81)
- Brian Potter tells the story of titanium
- Moralizing about consumption vs. economic reality (via @atrembath)
- The Engineering and Technology History Wiki (via @Ben_Reinhardt)
Queries
- Who have been the best research and development leaders in industry history?
- What is the best writing about positive AI futures?
- Which companies have incredibly thorough, detailed books written about them?
- Foundational texts for a course on economic growth? (And some actual examples)
- What happened to public trust in government in 1964?
Quotes
- “A goddess enthroned on a car”: automobiles represented empowerment for women
- A Ford factory as “a daring expression of the human spirit”
- We used to terraform
- The importance of statistics in the spread of sanitation and hygiene practices
- Deirdre McCloskey on the British Empire
- Wisdom from James Watt Jr.
- Bones evolved via biochemical recycling
- The bill creating Social Security was only 37 pages long
Other tweets
- Many people upset about this weed zapper, but the alternative is spraying poison
- Gardens in late-19th c. Paris produced crops using manure from city horses
- Rather than “work” vs. “post-work”, the reality is a continuous, gradual change
- A new technology that could reduce costs of whole-brain connectomics by 1000x
- Portable MRIs are a thing now
- Academics once saw their work as in service to engineers/industry
- Project idea: a series of studies of how different technologies got cheaper
- “You cannot separate the ability to make a decision from the ability to make a wrong decision”
- Safety is only one reason to want self-driving cars, and not necessarily the top one
- Glenn Seaborg, who discovered plutonium and several other elements. See also my essay on nuclides
- Richard Ngo is “optimistic about almost all aspects of AI”
- Alex Tabarrok’s message to Americans: “double down on America”
- We need a capitalism appreciation day (or a course)
- “The Age of Invention,” a proto-steampunk card game
Charts
Beauty
Comment: Progress Forum, LessWrong, Reddit
