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Check out the latest from Astral Codex Ten, Stratechery, Peter Zeihan, Slow Boring, Noahpinion.

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Latest stories

Where in the World: Quartzite and Greentech [Peter Zeihan, Zeihan on Geopolitics]

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  • Green Tech solar and wind are heralded as a cure-all, however the process of producing PV cells is extraordinarily damaging to the environment.
  • Silicon, which is used to produce PV cells, is mined and refined with a blast furnace, often powered by coal, making the carbon footprint of the production process extreme.
  • Solar panels are not effective in most cities due to lack of sun, needing to run five times as long to make up for the carbon debt.
  • Wind turbines are a better option; they are non-toxic to manufacture, often created with carbon fiber and aluminum, and can be situated in places that make sense.
  • Wind power is more reliable, reaching higher speeds and able to be used for base load capacity, while solar power is intermittent and cannot be used for peak demand.
  • If solar is not used in the right location, it can become part of the environmental problem instead of the solution.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LV-D9mKoig – December 21, 2022

Website: https://zeihan.com/where-in-the-world-quartzite-and-greentech/

Secret Congress delivers more good news on clean water [Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring]

S
  • The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 was incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act and passed on December 15, delivering good news on clean water.
  • Negativity bias in media coverage means that positive environmental news is often overlooked.
  • The Potomac River is now mostly swimmable due to a mix of mega- and micro-projects.
  • The Secret Congress phenomenon is a result of both the competitive media environment and the public’s preference for negative news.
  • The Biden administration has committed to refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which should help moderate prices and support domestic production.
  • Whale populations have rebounded, but this good news is often overlooked.

Click HERE for original. Published December 21, 2022


You Have to Assume Everyone is Terrible at Understanding Art [Freddie deBoer]

Y
  • Mad Men scene between Don Draper and Michael Ginsberg is frequently memed, but viewers tend to miss the underlying meaning
  • People often miss the point of Mad Men, thinking Don Draper is portrayed as a cool and successful character, when in fact he is a broken, depressed liar and alcoholic
  • Similar misreading occurs with The Sopranos, where Tony is seen as a cool guy when he is actually a monster and a mentally stunted child
  • People will take from art whatever they choose to see, regardless of the underlying message

Click HERE for original. Published December 20, 2022

December 20, 2022 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American]

D
  • Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) made a statement to desperately and unconstitutionally target President Trump and Republicans, while trying to ride Trump’s coattails to power.
  • Passantino, the top ethics lawyer for the Trump White House, is accused of advising Hutchinson to give misleading testimony which could be career ending and even lead to jail time.
  • The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is cooperating with the Justice Department’s special counsel and preparing to release its final report.
  • Title 42, the pandemic restriction on migrants’ right to apply for asylum in the U.S., is set to be lifted, but Republican attorneys general from 19 states have sued to keep it in place.
  • House Republicans are snarling at one another, while the administration has asked the court to deny the applicants’ attempt to keep Title 42 in place.
  • The House Committee on Ways and Means voted to make Trump’s tax returns public after blacking out personal information, while raising questions as to why the IRS was not auditing Trump’s taxes during his first two years in office.

Click HERE for original. Published December 20, 2022

Steel: Thinning Supply Lines [Peter Zeihan, Zeihan on Geopolitics]

S

Key Points:

  • Steel fabrication involves two processes: making pig iron from iron ore and coal and creating hot and cold rolled steels.
  • The US is the world leader in cold rolled steel, but has to import most of its pig iron due to environmental regulations and foreign subsidies.
  • Indiana is a major exception, with half of US pig iron and 25% of all US steel coming from the state.
  • The US is able to produce economical hot rolled steel from recycled steel.
  • Due to sanctions and war, Ukraine is no longer a reliable source of pig iron, leaving Brazil as the US’s primary source.
  • Indiana is well-positioned to weather US steel’s struggles due to its existing foundries and infrastructure.

link to original vlog published December 20, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5B2WTFxw3w

Actually, Color-Blindness Isn’t Racist [Coleman Hughes, TFP]

A
  • Color-blindness was once considered a progressive attitude, but is now seen as backwards, and even racist.
  • In reality, color-blindness is neither racist nor backwards; it is the belief that we should strive to treat people without regard to race in our public policy and personal lives.
  • Color-blindness has deep roots in the fight against slavery and segregation, and was embraced by the Civil Rights Movement.
  • Modern activists and intellectuals have twisted the history of color-blindness to delegitimize it, but this is a false history.
  • Color-blindness is the best way to govern a multiracial democracy and to fight racism, and abandoning it would be a mistake.

Click HERE for original. Published December 20, 2022

Twitter’s Link Ban [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

T

• Twitter’s link ban to other social networks was met with widespread condemnation, including from prominent members of the tech industry.

• Network portability is the single most important thing to spurring competition, but government regulation is going in the opposite direction.

• China is ramping up production of decade-old chip technology, setting off alarm bells in the US and prompting some lawmakers to try to stop them.

• The US has a massive strategic weakness when it comes to trailing edge chips, and the CHIPS Act should have been focused on building trailing edge capacity.

Published December 19, 2022

Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post

Up You Go [Freddie deBoer]

U
  • Freddie deBoer reflects on aging and how it can be both linear and fractal.
  • He recalls a time when he attended a piano-based emo band concert in his early twenties.
  • He was the biggest person in the crowd and was asked to help crowd surfers.
  • He found joy in helping the younger people and feeling useful.

Click HERE for original. Published December 19, 2022

Prediction Market FAQ [Astral Codex Ten]

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  • Prediction markets are like stock markets, but for beliefs about future events.
  • They are accurate and canonical, meaning they are at least as accurate as any other source of information and speak with a single unified voice.
  • They are proven to be at least as accurate as experts like Nate Silver, and have been found to beat other methods like election polling.
  • Real-life cases may fall short of the ideal due to transaction costs, easier ways to make money, lack of trust, and other factors.
  • They offer a way to get accurate and canonical answers to questions such as whether a vaccine will work, or if a politician’s pet project will succeed.
  • They are based on the idea of aggregating the collective wisdom of many people, and have been shown to be more accurate than individual experts.
  • Common objections to prediction markets include insider trading, encouraging harmful or illegal activities, and giving rich people more power.
  • However, these objections can be addressed by making insider trading illegal, avoiding markets in very specific harmful or illegal activities, and recognizing that it is difficult or impossible to successfully manipulate a prediction market.
  • Money in prediction markets comes from people betting on different sides of a proposition.
  • People may play prediction markets for fun, to make a profit, or to hedge against risk.
  • Prediction markets can be used to answer subjective or hard-to-measure questions, but resolution criteria must be carefully defined.
  • Prediction markets are not well-suited for questions with no clear future answer, or for predicting outcomes in the far future.
  • They can be used to make decisions, pledge to change prediction markets, draw attention to important issues, replicate scientific studies, and educate people about probability and overconfidence.
  • They have many limitations, such as difficulty predicting far future events and complex biases in predicting conditionals.
  • Prediction markets are mostly illegal in the US, but there are three strategies to work around this: operating outside the US, making special deals with US regulators, and operating using play-money only.
  • Ordinary people can help promote prediction markets by creating a Manifold Markets account, betting on topics, and creating markets for any interesting topics that don’t have one yet.
  • Experts in unrelated fields can try playing on Manifold and Metaculus, and hotshot financial traders can bet on real money prediction markets.
  • Journalists and bloggers should consider including or citing prediction markets in their articles.
  • Policy-makers should consider partnering with Metaculus or Good Judgment Project to learn.

Click HERE for original. Published December 19, 2022

JDAMs: Ukrainian Bombs Get Smarter [Peter Zeihan, Zeihan on Geopolitics]

J
  • The US has provided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS) to the Ukraine, which are bombs with fins and a GPS transceiver attached to them, increasing their accuracy and making them cheaper than before.
  • With JDAMS, the Ukraine can now engage in offensive air attack missions, allowing them to target Russian targets within range and with pinpoint accuracy.
  • This technology can change the tactical and strategic picture of the Ukraine War, giving the Ukraine an advantage in the conflict.

link to original vlog published December 19, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qQeyi4bBHU


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