Farewell, my Captain
A TV character gave us a glimpse of what humanity might become.
Economics
Noahpinion.
Economics and other interesting stuff.
Recent essays
30 of 102A golden age of science is coming
AI can do things humans researchers can’t, even in groups.
Roundup #90: In which Noah joins a Japanese VC firm
The humanities; Data center crowd-out; Chinese local governments; AI and capitalism; How Japan builds; Phones bad; Chinese manufacturing; Rent control
The internet breaks
What will be next to break?
France and the limits of liberalism
Immigration, the welfare state, and Keynesian economics are all showing signs of strain.
“You Can See Everything” and the nature of liars
A movie review, plus some thoughts on dishonesty, belief, and human communication.
Can a Million AI Agents Create Superintelligence?
Ramez Naam gives a skeptic’s take on agent swarms.
Why are we ruled by barbarians?
America’s New Right believes that savagery is the key to victory.
AI vs. the railroads
Are we in 1872?
A Nobel for New Keynesian macro, at last!
It’s about time.
Why Donald Trump won in 2024
Re-upping my election post-mortem, so that we don’t forget.
Maybe the Rapture is already here
In the future, we’re all heavenbanned.
There is no “Indian Question”
The actual question is what kind of a nation America is going to be.
What the AI boom is doing for Americans
It’s not just “of, by and for oligarchs”.
The second Trump presidency is a world-historic failure
How did Trump fumble so badly?
Roundup #89: It isn’t X, it’s Y
AI risk; Reindustrialization; The rent crisis; AI and jobs; Mass deportation; Chinese investment; Cyber risk
Stop spending money on smaller classes
We’ve spent decades raising teacher quantity when we should have been raising quality.
Where’s the “intelligence explosion”?
Ramez Naam gives a skeptic’s take on Recursive Self-Improvement.
Four eras of San Francisco tech culture
An anthropological reflection.
No, you are not on Indigenous land
A repost from 2024.
The problem(s) with utilitarianism
Our favorite moral philosophy is about to come under increasing strain.
How we can beat China
The trick is to let them beat themselves.
Roundup #88: Is it time to panic yet?
AI risk; AI and growth; AI and Saas; Rich people; Christians vs. Nazis; Japanese culture; State capacity; City size
The anti-American Right
Bo French’s rightist movement is a dead end for our nation. Fortunately, it’s beatable.
Two missing pieces in the AI safety discussion
We need to make skeptics properly scared. And we need to make CHINA properly scared.
Get the Middle East out of my politics!
A manifesto.
Liberalism needs a new philosophy of immigration
We need to make a principled stand instead of a tactical retreat.
AI keeps stubbornly refusing to take our jobs
Happy Labor Day!! Your labor is still valuable.
America is still beating China in the AI race
The U.S. is staying ahead, though the costs of that lead are still unknown.
Why you won’t get a flying car
A review of “Where is My Flying Car?”, by J. Storrs Hall, and some other thoughts on the future of technology.