# Progress links and tweets, 2023-06-14

**Announcements & opportunities**
---------------------------------

*   [The Long Now Foundation is hiring an Executive Director](https://twitter.com/stewartbrand/status/1667261923413626881)
*   [Terraform Industries (solar-powered carbon-neutral natural gas synthesis) is hiring](https://twitter.com/TerraformIndies/status/1667203292416581633)
*   [A class on how politics works, so you can get involved productively](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1666798500556820481)
*   [Read Something Wonderful, writing that has stood the test of time](https://readsomethingwonderful.com/) (including my pieces on [iron](https://readsomethingwonderful.com/p/177/iron-from-mythical-to-mundane) and [smallpox](https://readsomethingwonderful.com/p/176/slaying-the-speckled-monster))
*   [Turpentine Media, a new media network covering tech, business, & culture](https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg/status/1666872669290233857)

**News**
--------

*   [Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber,” has died in prison at 81](https://twitter.com/AP/status/1667577826785017863). See Kevin Kelly’s [summary of and rebuttal to his philosophy](https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-unabomber-w/)

**Links**
---------

*   [Marc Andreessen on AI safety](https://pmarca.substack.com/p/why-ai-will-save-the-world). Note [what I highlighted and where I disagree](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1666133055562559508)
*   [Jacob Steinhardt predicts what will GPT look like in 2030](https://bounded-regret.ghost.io/what-will-gpt-2030-look-like/)
*   [What Lant Pritchett is for: productivity, state capability, education, labor mobility](https://lantpritchett.org/what-i-as-a-development-economist-have-been-actively-for/)
*   [The Illusion of Moral Decline](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x) (via [@a\_m\_mastroianni](https://twitter.com/a_m_mastroianni/status/1666482105289961472)). One of [many decline illusions](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1666514670180507671)
*   [The untold story of the precursors of the steam engine](https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-invention-how-the-steam-engine) (by [@antonhowes](https://twitter.com/antonhowes/status/1667074778958536710))
*   [Holden Karnofsky suggests “a playbook for AI risk reduction”](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Fbk9H6ipfybHyqjrp/a-playbook-for-ai-risk-reduction-focused-on-misaligned-ai)
*   [Mark Lutter interview on his Caribbean charter city project](https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/how-to-create-a-new-city-an-interview) (via [@MarkLutter](https://twitter.com/MarkLutter/status/1666441621146152962))
*   [Trailer for *Nuclear Now*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c5RPk8FlIk), which is now on streaming platforms (via [@oklo](https://twitter.com/oklo/status/1666478713578598401))
*   [Casey Handmer on why we don’t build underground](https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/04/05/welcome-to-my-secret-underground-lair/). Building a road tunnel costs “$100,000 per meter, or equivalent to a stack of Hamiltons of the same length.” (!) Although I don’t know if Casey used [Norway or Seattle figures](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1566183749062078464)
*   [Also Casey: 1 gram of stratospheric SO~2~ offsets 1 ton of CO~2~ for 1 year](https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/06/06/we-should-not-let-the-earth-overheat/) (!)
*   [“Existential Crunch” synthesizes research about social collapse](https://florianjehn.github.io/Societal_Collapse/2023-06-06-collapse_overview/) (via [@mattsclancy](https://twitter.com/mattsclancy/status/1666441193197121537))
*   [Turnspit dogs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_dog) (via [@RebeccaRideal](https://twitter.com/RebeccaRideal/status/1666162982248669186) via [@antonhowes](https://twitter.com/antonhowes/status/1666166731499352067))

[![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Turnspit_Dog_Working.jpg/800px-Turnspit_Dog_Working.jpg)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Turnspit_Dog_Working.jpg/800px-Turnspit_Dog_Working.jpg)

**Requests for books/sources on…**
----------------------------------

*   [How Moore’s Law actually happened?](https://twitter.com/_brianpotter/status/1665711864142086146)
*   Related, [the modern history of chips/AI?](https://twitter.com/eric_is_weird/status/1665774388317126656)
*   [West Midlands in the Industrial Revolution and today?](https://twitter.com/guynewey/status/1667507523195207680)
*   [Programming design for Apollo 11?](https://twitter.com/brunoeducsant/status/1666857082878930954)
*   [The history of commodities markets?](https://twitter.com/matthewjmandel/status/1666551046984925191)
*   [The S&L crisis?](https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1665706831149252608)

**Other queries**
-----------------

*   [Who are the virtuosos of the ChatGPT form?](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1665874995455639554)
*   [What societies have successfully gone through degrowth?](https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1665868111659122692) (If any…)
*   [Anecdotes of scientists eschewing management or calling for more autonomy?](https://twitter.com/krisgulati/status/1666443174250725380)
*   [Term for the age you would have died at, if not for modern medicine?](https://twitter.com/artcrimeprof/status/1667600423295893506)
*   [Best treatment of why actions often produce the opposite of the intended effect?](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1667252314267176968)
*   [How to square Cruise’s claim of 1 injury in first 1M driverless miles with SF’s claims?](https://twitter.com/Jess_Riedel/status/1666639036864417792) (Maybe [three are actually Waymo, and none seem at-fault?](https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/13zo94i/heres_the_four_collisions_with_injuries_sf_is/))

**Quotes**
----------

*   [“The flying machine is one of God’s most gracious and precious gifts”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1667630696041443330)
*   [Admiral Rickover on academic reactors vs. practical reactors](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1667158283054874624)
*   [The stock ticker was the 19th-century equivalent of social media](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1667636682118635521)
*   [Straight, level roads were a new, non-obvious idea in the early 1800s](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1667632488905162754)
*   [How the precautionary principle became a weapon against new technology](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1667631202218528771)
*   [“Systems tend to malfunction conspicuously just after their greatest triumph”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1666259295162212352)

**Tweets & threads**
--------------------

*   [Cruise AVs learn to honk at human drivers to avoid collisions](https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1666101504141557765)
*   [We have seen smoke blotting out the sky before, such as the “Dark Day” of 1780](https://twitter.com/CharlesCMann/status/1666795849567858689)
*   [Bret Devereaux on what life was like as a typical Roman peasant](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1667996092506468352). Among other things, children died young and [yes, the parents mourned](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1667996135405780992)
*   [Author of “Mundanity of Excellence” responds to me on the value of talent](https://twitter.com/DanFChambliss/status/1667170599037173760)
*   [“Progress studies showed me that *ideas matter* & can have true real world impact”](https://twitter.com/TrevMcKendrick/status/1667046568300802053)
*   [A dam is sabotaged, and the main media concern is a nuclear plant at little risk](https://twitter.com/WKCosmo/status/1666073249787133954)
*   [The apathy that manifests when technology becomes invisible](https://twitter.com/ericdickinger/status/1666799753051672577). Also, [“pragmatic optimism” and “solutionism”](https://twitter.com/ericdickinger/status/1666437361348259840)
*   [What “consciousness-raising” feminism did and why it was necessary](https://twitter.com/s_r_constantin/status/1666829261922082816)
*   [How well-intentioned government policy turns into implementation nightmares](https://twitter.com/zachweinberg/status/1666209256331173897)
*   [The O-1/EB-1 are underutilized by top talent and many get bad info about eligibility](https://twitter.com/lisawehden/status/1667573220474777600)
*   [SF changes the planning code to reduce burden on shop owners](https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1666219121493815308)
*   [Treatment effect? No, selection effect](https://twitter.com/StefanFSchubert/status/1666354111757836288)
*   [I oscillate between “everything is screwed up” and “screwed-up is normal”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1667257765117546505). Also, [the minimum competence of professionals is much lower than you would hope](https://twitter.com/sashachapin/status/1667215036899549184)
*   [You can do Scylla and Charybdis as emoji 🐉⛵️🌀](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1666134282153209892)
*   [150 years after Darwin’s finches, a biology paper identified the protein that made their beaks different](https://twitter.com/NikoMcCarty/status/1667542148194115586)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyRMvcFaYAEYs0t.png)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyRMvcFaYAEYs0t.png)

*   [Infrastructure that looks like sci-fi](https://twitter.com/kane/status/1646195380290306066)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fth19LsXwBUBtT9.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fth19LsXwBUBtT9.jpg)

**Maps & charts**
-----------------

*   [Holding period of stocks over time](https://twitter.com/LibertyRPF/status/1666084542736916483)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fx8e8PIaAAAdiFt.png)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fx8e8PIaAAAdiFt.png)

*   [Revenue evolution for various industries](https://twitter.com/Ben_Reinhardt/status/1665724984671576069)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fx3YCrkWAAIXk7a.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fx3YCrkWAAIXk7a.jpg)

*   [When Singapore needs more land, it builds more](https://twitter.com/NathanpmYoung/status/1667567263723995137)

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

*   [It used to be hazardous to breathe outdoor air for much of the year](https://twitter.com/AlecStapp/status/1666778328051728384)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyGWDnPX0AcsWEM.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyGWDnPX0AcsWEM.jpg)