Links and short notes, 2025-01-13

Comments on the wildfires, why kissing a nuclear waste cask is fine, one weird trick to fight NIMBYs, the case of the missing statues, Eli Dourado's model of policy change, plastic in foods, and more

Much of this content originated on social media. To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Threads, Bluesky, or Farcaster.

Contents

• From me and RPI

• Jobs and fellowships

• Other opportunities

• Events

• Questions

• Announcements

• Commentary on the wildfires

• Sam Altman: AI workers in 2025, superintelligence next

• Never underestimate elasticity of supply

• “The earnestness and diligence of smart technical people”

• “Americans born on foreign soil”

• Undaunted

• Eli Dourado’s model of policy change

• Stats

• Links

• AI

• Inspiration

• Politics

• China biotech rising

• Predictions about war

• Why did we wait so long for the camera?

• Housing without homebuilders

• Charts

• Fun

From me and RPI

• 2024 in review for me and RPI, in case you missed it, including my annual “highlights from things I read this year”

• First batch of recorded talks from Progress Conference 2024 are available now. Special thanks to

  Freethink
  for their excellent work producing these

Jobs and fellowships

• Tamay Besiroglu
  : Epoch AI hiring a Technical Lead “to develop a next-generation computer-use benchmark at Epoch AI. This will be for evaluating real-world AI capabilities as FrontierMath is for mathematics” (@tamaybes)

• “Funded year-long PhD student fellowship, combining non-partisan economic policy research & public service,” deadline Jan 30. Apply here (@heidilwilliams_)

• Julian Weisser
  : “I'm hiring (part-time) a techno-optimist who is obsessed with curating ideas” (@julianweisser)

Other opportunities

• Call for Focused Research Organization proposals in the UK. “Submit your concept paper by Feb 7 & full proposal by March 28.” (@Convergent_FROs). “Don't forget to scroll down … to the part where we have a ‘Request for FROs,’ with some ideas for inspiration” (@AdamMarblestone)

• Stories We'd Like to Publish (Part II), from

  Asimov Press
  . “Last time we did this, we got ~200 pitches and commissioned just about everything on the list” (@NikoMcCarty)

• Niko McCarty
  : “We should build an Our World in Data, but for biotechnology. … If this vision appeals to you, send me an email (niko@asimov.com), and I’ll help you get started” (@NikoMcCarty). Asimov Press might fund this project

• “My #1 priority right now is finding spaces to launch Primers [microschools]. We have educators all over Florida, Alabama & Arizona eager to launch schools in August. If you have 3+ classrooms available in your church, community center, school, synagogue, etc. — I'd love to talk. r@primer.com” (@delk)

• Calling eligible bachelors in SF: “AI philosopher with a perchant for underwater sci fi and evening bike rides seeks a direct communicator who cares about the world and feels a thrill of human triumph at the sight of a cargo ship.” (@AmandaAskell)

Events

• Jan 21 in DC: “How Would Changes to Infrastructure Permitting Affect the US Economy?”

  Brian Potter
  , Alec Stapp, James Coleman and
  Thomas Hochman
  on the permitting reform landscape (@ThomasHochman)

• Feb in Sydney, two live podcast events with Joe Walker: Richard Holden & Steven Hamilton on State Capacity and Peter Tulip on The Housing Crisis. Discount for the next 5 tickets that use the code PROGRESS (@JosephNWalker)

Questions

• Why did so much deregulation happen under Carter? Was he some strong neoliberal ideologue? Were others pushing the deregulation and he just didn't oppose it? Some combo of factors that just happened to converge during his administration? Or what? ChatGPT makes it sound like this was more about intellectual currents that had been building for a while and happened to come to fruition under Carter, who was reasonable enough not to oppose them. I am not sure.

• Trevor McKendrick
  : “I want to take verbal notes while reading a book … I want to have to do nothing but talk to an AI. What's the best way of doing this?” (@TrevMcKendrick)

• “What blogs are so insightful that it's worth reading the entire back catalog?” (@KHawickhorst)

Announcements

• New from Charles Mann: “How the System Works,” a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life (@CharlesCMann). It's the realization of this idea Charles mentioned two and a half years ago

• Biosphere is “unleashing biomanufacturing with a breakthrough UV-sterilized reactor that will slash the cost of producing abundant and sustainable chemicals and food at world scale” (@BrianTHeligman)

• Eric Gilliam
  joins Renaissance Philanthropy. Ren Phil is just scooping up talent! First
  Lauren Gilbert
  (RPI fellow), then Sarah Constantin (also RPI fellow!), now Eric. Congrats all around

• PlasticList’s report on testing 300 SF Bay Area foods for plastic chemicals (@natfriedman). Followup: “I am happy to report that no food company wants this stuff in their food and they are all eager to figure out what’s going on and how to remove it”; here is Nat’s Advice for Food Companies. Finally, “if you want to support more plastic testing, Million Marker is raising funds to test invisalign and other retainers” (@natfriedman)

• Syllabi, “introductions to new subjects by great people.” “Each syllabus has a 'readme' from the author to help you orient to the subject and a 'where to get started if you only have ~5 hours' section” (@nanransohoff)

• New Niskanen Center report by

  Jennifer Pahlka
  and
  Andrew Greenway
  : “Our roadmap for effective, efficient government” (@NiskanenCenter)

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