The post discusses the historical context of American imperialism around 1918, examining the territorial extent of the United States and the implications of relinquishing its empire. It argues that while the U.S. did not give up a...
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The post discusses the complexities surrounding the minimum wage and its implications in economics, particularly through the lens of monopsony. It argues that while traditional supply-and-demand models oppose minimum wage laws, mo...
The post analyzes trends in air travel, focusing on delays, safety, and airfare costs. It reveals that long delays have become more common, with a 3-hour delay being four times more likely in 2024 than in 1990, despite overall air...
The post discusses the evolving landscape of copyright law as it pertains to AI-generated content, emphasizing the significance of recent legal cases like Thaler v. Perlmutter, which established that human authorship is necessary ...
The post examines the claims surrounding the Child Protective Services (CPS) in the US, particularly the statistics regarding child investigations and removals. It confirms that CPS receives about 4 million referrals annually, wit...
The post compares Honolulu to a blend of Miami and Japan, highlighting its unique cultural, political, and geographical aspects. It discusses Hawaii's volcanic origins, urban development, and the influence of its Asian immigrant p...
The film 'One Battle After Another' follows Pat Calhoun and his companion Perfidia as they engage in political terrorism with a leftist group called the French 75. Their exploits include bombings and raids, leading to a conflict w...
The post discusses the urban and cultural landscape of Milan and its surroundings, highlighting the city's refined atmosphere, good but limited food variety, and effective urban design compared to North American cities. It contras...
Christopher Alexander's design philosophy highlights the significance of patterns in architecture and urban planning, critiquing modern cities' scale for their lack of beauty and community.
The text discusses the historical preservation of towns like Amalfi and the reasons why uncontrolled building led to beautiful places in the past but seems unlikely to do the same today. It explores the impact of strict regulation...
Fertility rates have been falling globally for decades, which is concerning as people are crucial for economic growth and technological progress. The paper discusses evolutionary models of human fertility, focusing on a 2014 paper...
The paper discusses how ancient Assyrian cities can be located using mentions of trade on Assyrian clay tablets from nearly four thousand years ago. The authors build a model that accurately recreates the location of known cities ...
0Post-Malthusian AI
2025-05-10 • economics labor market technological change ai
The text discusses the potential impact of superhuman AIs on human wages, arguing that human wages could be locked down below subsistence levels due to the productivity of AIs. It explores various scenarios and possibilities for h...
The text discusses the lack of a Roman Industrial Revolution and the reasons behind it. Historian Kyle Harper explains that Rome lacked a self-sustaining source of new ideas and technologies, particularly high science and mathemat...
The text discusses the issues facing American cities, attributing them to the destructive overreach of modernist urban renewal and the paralyzing vetocracy of environmental review. It argues that the solution to urban problems lie...
The text discusses a working paper by Serhan Cevik on the causal effect of fertility rates on economic growth. It explores the relationship between fertility and economic growth, the impact of fertility on GDP growth rates, and th...
The text discusses how natural disasters can act as coordination mechanisms that help property owners make efficient investments in new infrastructure and force governments to allow urban land uses and densities to fit market cond...
The book 'Abundance' by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is politically self-conscious and aimed at progressive political elites. It argues that redistribution is not as important as growth and innovation, and that the focus should b...
The text discusses an interview between Will MacAskill and Rob Wiblin on the 80k hours podcast about the implications of advanced AI for economics, politics, and human civilization. MacAskill presents the idea of the 'accelerated ...
0Most Externalities are Solved with Technology, Not Coordination
2025-03-14 • technology plumbing industrial revolution los angeles fires plastics electricity externalities air quality coordination solar energy infectious diseases whales automakers carbon emissions foodborne and waterborne diseases soil depletion green revolution leaded gasoline catalytic converter ivory poaching horse manure wood burning stove overfishing aquaculture
The text discusses how technology has been more effective than social coordination in solving externalities such as air pollution, infectious diseases, city fires, soil resource depletion, and Malthusian externalities. It provides...
0Grad School Applications
2025-03-06 • software economics research computer graphics
The author reflects on the value of grad school in light of AI advances, and offers advice for prospective applicants. He discusses the GRE, letters, research experience, and applications.
Metascience is a young field with proposals like person-based grants, variance scoring, golden tickets, or FROs. The evidence that external academic review improves decision making over internal ones is weak. There are lots of int...
Japan has experienced economic stagnation for over three decades, with slow GDP growth and low productivity. The country's population decline and aging demographics are major factors contributing to its economic stagnation. Japan'...
The article 'The Case for Colonialism' by Bruce Gilley argues that colonialism was beneficial for colonized populations and should be reintroduced today. The article was published in Third World Quarterly in 2017 and provoked cont...