Links and short notes, 2025-04-23

Impossible sci-fi nonsense, the shadow of the Great War, heliocentrism, the bottom-up abundance agenda, institutional sclerosis, and more

This digest is late and slightly outdated because I’ve been focusing on writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto. If I missed some of the more recent announcements, they’ll be in the next digest, which will be out approximately whenever.

To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Notes, Farcaster, Bluesky, or Threads.

Contents

• My writing (ICYMI)

• Progress Conference 2025 (ICYMI)

• Jobs

• Science opportunities

• Other opportunities

• Events

• AI announcements

• Bio announcements

• Other tech announcements

• Other announcements

• Abundance

• More stuff to read

• Queries

For paid subscribers:

• Impossible sci-fi nonsense

• The shadow of the Great War

• Heliocentrism

• Progress Conference posters in different styles

• The bottom-up abundance agenda

• Institutional sclerosis

• Links

• AI short notes

• More short notes

• Comments on the abundance agenda

• Stories people want

• Politics short notes

• Housing short notes

• Charts

My writing (ICYMI)

• How much does it cost to back up solar with batteries? This turns out to be a tricky question. I wrote up my current, partial understanding

• We should install a thermostat on the Earth, Chapter 5 part 3 of The Techno-Humanist Manifesto. “Stopping climate change” is the wrong goal. The techno-humanist framing is that humanity should create climate control

• The Flywheel, Chapter 6 of The Techno-Humanist Manifesto. Why was progress so slow, for so long? And were the last few centuries a fluke, after which we should expect a regression to the mean of slow growth? Or were they part of a trend that we can expect to continue?

Progress Conference 2025 (ICYMI)

Announcing Progress Conference 2025! October 16–19 in Berkeley, CA.

Hosted by the Roots of Progress Institute, together with Abundance Institute, the Foresight Institute, Foundation for American Innovation, Human Progress, the Institute for Progress, the Institute for Humane Studies, and Works in Progress.

Keynotes include Sam Altman, Tyler Cowen, Jennifer Pahlka, and Blake Scholl. 30+ additional speakers will share ideas on four tracks: AI protopia, health / biotech / longevity, policy, and American dynamism.

This is an invitation-only event, but anyone can apply for an invitation. Complete the open application by May 15th.

Thanks to our early sponsors Open Philanthropy, Astera Institute, Freethink, the Future of Life Institute, Human Progress, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Foundation for Economic Education, Good Science Project, Kindred Subjects, and Manifold.

Jobs

• Asimov Press is hiring a Researcher “to contribute original reporting for articles and also curate datasets for our ‘Data’ series” (@NikoMcCarty)

• The Institute for Progress is hiring a Fellow or Senior Fellow for the Metascience Team. Tell them you were referred by RPI

• Valar Atomics is hiring a writer: “You must be good at volume output, great at catching Whims and Fancies and converting them to coherent prose—fast, trustworthy, technical, America-loving, and willing to become a decamillionaire from stock options of the world’s biggest energy company. DM me” (@isaiah_p_taylor)

• The Foundation for Economic Education is hiring “an experienced and dynamic Senior Project Manager to establish and lead our Project Management Office (PMO)” (@feeonline)

Science opportunities

• Astera residency Fall 2025 cohort applications are open, through May 2. “We make big bets on the misfits and innovators working towards an abundant future for all. … Residents receive salary, opportunity for additional budget for team and expenses, compute access, lab space, and an exceptional community of talented like-minded peers, mentors, and investors to support your pursuit of ambitious projects for the benefit of humanity.” (@AsteraInstitute and @catehall)

• The Big if True Science Accelerator (BiTS) from Renaissance Philanthropy. “The goal is help more scientists design the type of ambitious research programs that were critical to advancements such as the Internet or mRNA vaccines” (@KumarAGarg)

• The Alliance of Talent Leaders Across Science (ATLAS) “seeks to identify, support, and connect leaders who are cultivating technical and scientific communities across the UK” (also from @KumarAGarg and @RenPhil21)

Other opportunities

• “Pieces we would like to commission” at Works in Progress. “If you want to write for Works in Progress and one of these seems suitable, we would be very excited to see you pitch them. Or they may spark ideas for other pieces you could write” (@s8mb)

• The Stripe Economics of AI Fellowship: “The economics of AI remains surprisingly understudied. The fellowship aims to help fill that gap, by supporting grad students and early-career researchers with $, data, a conference, and community” (@BasilHalperin)

• Invisible College is “the Works in Progress magazine seminar for 18-22 year olds” in Cambridge. Applications open for this August. “Our lecturers will cover the industrial revolution; what is going wrong with science today; housing; urbanism; and more” (@underthenettle)

• Worldbuilding AI Futures, a new online course from the Foresight Institute. “Explore AI’s impact, learn futures tools, and build your own 2035 scenario—no technical background needed” (@HopeExistential)

• The Foundation for American Innovation is running a six-week, part-time Conservative AI Policy Fellowship: “AI is developing at a rapid pace. Want to be one of the bright minds bringing America’s AI policy up to speed? … Applications are now live and close on 04/30” (@JoinFAI)

• GrowSF Talent wants to help people work in city government. “We started GrowSF with a mission to elect better leaders in City Hall, starting with the Board of Supervisors. Now we want to help people get involved at all levels of city government” (@agarwal)

Events

• Vitalist Bay is going on now through May 29: “an 8-week longevity zone in Berkeley, California bringing the world’s best minds together to extend human healthspan & solve aging”

AI announcements

• Emmett Shear launches Softmax, “dedicated to pursuing a mathematical theory of organic alignment, and to applying this theory in practice with engineering at scale” (@eshear)

• Gemini 2.5 launches from DeepMind, evidently it’s very good: “We evaluated it on GPQA Diamond, and found a score of 84%, exactly matching the result reported by Google. This is the best result we have found on this benchmark to date!” (@EpochAIResearch)

• AI 2027 is “a deeply-researched scenario forecast” by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Eli Lifland, and Thomas Larsen (@DKokotajlo). “An extremely useful document. Agree or disagree with the ending, you’ll learn a ton by tussling with the parts of the story you disagree with” (@dwarkesh_sp). Dwarkesh did a podcast on it

• Anthropic’s Recommendations to OSTP for the U.S. AI Action Plan. “In 2025 myself and Anthropic will be more forthright about our views on AI, especially the speed with which powerful things are arriving” (@jackclarkSF)

• ChatGPT got a new images feature (@sama). I’ve tried it, it’s very good

Bio announcements

• Orchid featured in NYT. “Whole genome embryo screening for *hundreds* of diseases. Not in theory. Not in mice. In humans. In IVF centers. Right now” (@noor_siddiqui)

• New Limit progress update: “We can restore youthful function in aged livers. Having the metabolism of someone 20 years younger than you would be a massive quality of life improvement for people. Including getting less hungover! We are getting closer to a true Age reversal drug—one that recovers many youthful functions all at once (regeneration, alcohol processing, resilience, etc). I'm optimistic NewLimit gets there this year” (@byersblake)

• Human Body Single-Cell Atlas of 3D Genome Organization and DNA Methylation: “The first whole-body map of both DNA methylation and 3D genome organization at single-cell resolution across 16 human tissues, with in-depth analyses of cell type diversity of these epigenome modalities at unprecedented resolutions” (@arcinstitute)

Other tech announcements

• Future Tech Partners is a new tech consulting firm for early-stage deep tech startups and investors—from the former CTOs of Commonwealth Fusion and MITRE. Fractional CTO, tech diligence, and other services. “Helping you turn science fiction into reality.” Tell them Jason sent you

• Zipline announces the Zipping Point, “enabling anyone to send packages through the Zipline Network” (@ryanzip)

Other announcements

• The Centre for British Progress launches. “Our founding essay: Rediscovering British Progress is a case for growth that drives shared progress, rooted in Britain's values and industrial heritage” (@BritishProgress)

• The Abundance Landscape is a new directory of progress/abundance organizations (@EconDerek)

• Infinite Books launches from O’Shaughnessy Ventures (@jposhaughnessy)

• Michael Kratsios (@mkratsios47) is the new OSTP director; here is the official letter to him from POTUS. “Scientific progress and technological innovation were the twin engines that powered the American century. The Manhattan Project fueled the atomic era. The Apollo Program won us the space race. The internet connected us to a digital future. Today, we will usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation. We will make America safer, healthier, and more prosperous than ever before. We will create a future of American greatness for every citizen, restoring the American Dream” (via @rSanti97)

Abundance

Abundance, by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, has launched:

• “This morning's adaptation, published in The Atlantic, is my distillation of our theory of abundance vs. Donald Trump's personal politics of scarcity”: Liberals Can’t Blame Trump for California (@DKThomp)

• Derek and Ezra also discussed the book on Derek’s podcast

• Virginia Postrel’s review: “Lawn-Sign Liberalism vs. Supply-Side Progressivism”

• @JerusalemDemsas: “Congrats to @DKThomp and @ezraklein on book day! The book dares liberals to dream bigger. I hope everyone reads it. I really loved it”

• @pitdesi: “I have become abundance-pilled by @ezraklein and @DKThomp. Both political parties fail us with a scarcity mindset. On the left: degrowth, regulatory overreach, opposition to nuclear, and a fetish for rationing resources. On the right: economic protectionism, anti-immigrant policies, opposition to solar, gutting science programs, and nostalgia for a vanishing past. … the Abundance mindset isn't partisan - It’s the progressives dream of immigration and affordable housing, libertarians push for free trade and deregulation, conservatives love of American greatness—and a rejection of zero-sum thinking from all sides”

Many, many reviews and reactions, too many to list!

More stuff to read

• The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, by Dwarkesh Patel, published by Stripe Press (@_TamaraWinter)

• Asimov Press Issue 6: Blood-Red Microbes, AI Scientists, Nobel Duels

• The Anatomists, a new Substack from former surgeon Laura Mazer. Knowing Laura, and having heard her give talks, I expect this to be quite good (@drlauramazer)

• A Beginner’s Guide to Scientific Roadmapping: “There are so many inspiring examples of scientific roadmaps out there: this post was our quick way of introducing new explorers of the scientific landscape to this fascinating genre” (@AdamMarblestone)

• An Action Plan for American Leadership in AI, from IFP. “Build AI data centers faster & more securely; support American open-source ecosystem; build state capacity to evaluate nat sec implications; recruit superstar AI talent; smarter export controls, not just blanket bans” (@calebwatney)

• American Science Should Take a Lot More Risks (NYT), by Caleb Watney of IFP (@calebwatney)

Queries

Click through and reply to the querier if you can help:

• “In which domains are elite practitioners celebrating the kids being better than ever before? Would love to read about a few instances. (Not just where there's one particular genius, such as Ashwin Sah's recent success, but where "the kids" as some kind of aggregate appear to be improving.)” (@patrickc)

• “Who are the great theorists of change? Obvious examples include Schumpeter (Creative Destruction), Popper and Lakatos (on improving knowledge). Who else?” (@michael_nielsen)

• “Is there a book / essay about environments that best support scientific discovery? Not about specifically bell labs, cavendish, xerox parc, los alamos - but why these places were so productive?” (@saranormous)

• “Who are the most interesting metascience thinkers/writers?” (@notanastronomer)

• “Should I read the Abundance book? I’m a YIMBY clean energy/power plant developer already, read the very good essays that led to it, and fully endorse the premise. Anything surprising in it?” (@cody_a_hill)