# Progress links and tweets, 2023-05-09

**Announcements**
-----------------

*   [Stripe Press is publishing *Poor Charlies Almanack*](https://www.stripe.press/poor-charlies-almanack) (via [@patrickc](https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1654508051326701575)). Also, Londoners: [sign up for events from Stripe Press and Works in Progress](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeESmwzpCMv4wMwXG7f8scvlNteF9ovFxrbVx6kbPOohE4jyQ/viewform) (via [@WorksInProgMag](https://twitter.com/WorksInProgMag/status/1653700089402015746))
*   [Dwarkesh Patel’s podcast *The Lunar Society* now taking applications for advertisers](https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/1653446590294790144). Also, Dwarkesh would really love to [interview Robert Caro](https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/1654154860286078979)

**Links**
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*   [*The Ascent of Man* turns 50](https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/may/the-ascent-of-man/). Here’s [the premiere](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH7SJf8BnBI) (via [@BBCArchive](https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1654397015009161216) & [@drbronowski](https://twitter.com/drbronowski/status/1653401803000774661))
*   [Celebrating Smallpox Eradication Day](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/5/3/23709475/smallpox-world-health-organization-disease-covid-vaccination-health)
*   [How photographs could be sent by telephone in the 1930s](https://youtu.be/cLUD_NGE370) (via [@asallen](https://twitter.com/asallen/status/1653645247136792580))
*   [Brian Potter on nuclear power plant construction costs](https://progress.institute/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs/) (via [@calebwatney](https://twitter.com/calebwatney/status/1653053249191043072))
*   [The Hunterian Museum, on anatomy & the history of surgery](https://hunterianmuseum.org/) (via [@salonium](https://twitter.com/salonium/status/1654468066648915968))

**Quotes**
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*   [Sears was basically Amazon one century earlier](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1655382739514736645)
*   [“Humanities bros need to take more STEM classes”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1655383788187254785)
*   [Child labor was once seen as a good thing](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1652449270170091526)
*   [Evidence for the use of water wheels early in the first century](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1653846952084221955)
*   [Autopilots have been on airplanes for a long time](https://twitter.com/_brianpotter/status/1653786384514121729)
*   [The Pasteur Institute was privately funded](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1655376526185988103)
*   [Something to keep in mind the next time you contact customer service](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1653841534289100807)

**Queries**
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*   [What are the best reasons for optimism about AI risk?](https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1653474765414477824) (@MaxCRoser)
*   [What lessons can we learn about reasoning from Bayes’ rule?](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1654511357570449412)
*   [What are the most impressive things we could build if we all really wanted it?](https://twitter.com/mattsclancy/status/1655377520399720450)
*   [What to read to understand the history of the US electrical grid?](https://twitter.com/_brianpotter/status/1653400013026852864) (@_brianpotter)
*   [What is going to enable $1/day continuous hormone monitoring?](https://twitter.com/sarakemppainen/status/1653786909611790336)
*   [Is there progress-studies work on the home/family dimensions of flourishing?](https://twitter.com/uncatherio/status/1654267055472881664)
*   [What’s the best way to help someone learn to understand another’s POV?](https://twitter.com/josephflaherty/status/1653860435810975747)
*   [What are some of the most useful impossibility proofs?](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1655311163066916865)
*   [Who is going to create the Cshirchive?](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1654551854645116933)

**Tweets**
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*   [John Carmack: “the world is better than it has ever been… and the derivative is still positive… get on board the progress train.”](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1653437161658544129) Fortunately [the malaise is not universal](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1654180213780107279)
*   [Sam Altman’s “alternative path for society”](https://twitter.com/sama/status/1655249663262613507)
*   [Dustin Moskovitz: “By 2030, I expect ~everyone will have a personal AI agent”](https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1654936975944871937)
*   [India building nuclear at < $2/W?](https://twitter.com/arvv/status/1653063417911967745)
*   [How LLMs can be used for causal inference](https://twitter.com/amt_shrma/status/1653457971844874240)
*   [Could protein folding be ready for its fundamental theory?](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1655235910102044672)
*   [Life in America 40 years ago vs. today](https://twitter.com/vikrambath1/status/1196179284584534016)
*   [Adam Thierer’s progress bookshelf](https://twitter.com/AdamThierer/status/1654585963165671425)
*   [Robotaxis were perhaps over hyped in 2017, but opposite is true now](https://twitter.com/ryrzny/status/1654041517076480001)
*   [Until 150 years ago people lived in a permanent power outage](https://twitter.com/waitbutwhy/status/1653378068747091969)
*   [We accept “the community decides” for land use, but not elsewhere](https://twitter.com/JeremiahDJohns/status/1653568911374254080)
*   [A neutron star is like a cargo ship crunched down to the size of a cake sprinkle](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1653742034719481856)
*   [After all the banks fail, who provides liquidity?](https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/1653528871789113345)
*   [How to use social media](https://twitter.com/josephflaherty/status/1652799031427444737)
*   [“I am a language model of a modern major general”](https://twitter.com/kjhealy/status/1653553791076007939)
*   [The Stanford Torus, a space settlement megastructure](https://twitter.com/granawkins/status/1653223967631769600)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvFk4MgacAErF2v.png)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvFk4MgacAErF2v.png)

**Charts**
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*   [Infant mortality has improved so much that these J-curves have been straightened out](https://twitter.com/salonium/status/1653031640677875712)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvC_HwVWwAEmq3z.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvC_HwVWwAEmq3z.jpg)

*   [*Staphylococcus* killed by far-UVC light. Imagine using this in public spaces](https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1653886715277312000)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvPHpMMX0AAnuRU.png)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvPHpMMX0AAnuRU.png)

*   [Why LLMs will not “demolish white-collar employment overnight”](https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1653416007308804097)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvIdB6KXoAED46Q.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvIdB6KXoAED46Q.jpg)