Books
Finished To Risk It All, Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision by Admiral James Stavridis. Deep, deep dad lit. I enjoyed more for the capsule history of various historical points in the history of the U.S. Navy than for the moments of leadership it’s meant to highlight. You mileage may vary, but I’d say recommended for the enthusiast.
Also mere days away from finishing the Beast. Review forthcoming in early June that will be far more extensive than the usual 300 words or so I do here. Also still dipping in an out of the Attia book on longevity, a book about David Bowie’s darkest era, and ploughing through the book on the pay pal mafia that came out a little over a year ago and feels like a time capsule of the height of the tech boom / low interest rate vibes.
Articles, podcasts, playlists
Last week, Russ Roberts had Eliezer Yudkowsky, the AI doom alarmist on his podcast and it was… illuminating. I think Yudkowsky is, essentially, a fraud and I think he showed that by essentially failing to make a coherent argument on Roberts show. It was good to hear a counterpoint to Yudkowsky this week from Tyler Cowen who took Yudkowsky and the AI doomers to the debate woodshed challenging them to present any model that shows misaligned AI destroying humanity — they have none. All they have, to paraphrase Cowen, is verbosely worded arguments stacked vertically until they reach a conclusion for which they have provided no real evidence. Highly recommended.
Maybe you’re sick of the AI is going to change everything think pieces, and if you are, fine. But if you’re not, you’d do worse than to start with this piece in Tablet “You Are Not Destined to Live in Quiet Times”. Everything is changing, especially for those of us who make our livings at keyboards. It’s time to really start thinking about what it means for you.
Anyone who is paying attention to the climate science has known for awhile we were going to blow right past the limiting climate change to a 1.5c change that politicians have been touting for years. That was, frankly, never realistic, but now it’s been confirmed. We’ll get there in five years or less. Frankly, I suspect we will blow right past 2c as well, at which point we’ll be dealing with multiple major catastrophes and, hopefully, will finally start paying attention.
Folks smarter than me are talking about the new book by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson Power and Progress on technology and social change. I haven’t read the book, and likely won’t, but I did get a lot out of Acemoglu’s Lunch with the FT interview and Johnson’s appearance on Conversations with Tyler. The raminifactions of technological change are complex and not good for everyone! What do you need to do to make sure they turn out well for you?
I am freaked the fuck out about the rise in suicide in America, especially the rise among young children (10-14 year olds have seen a huge increase!). Folk are reporting on it, and I found this conversation on the Ezra Klien Show about it illuminating, but it seems like we’ve barely begun to understand what is happening here and that should alarm us all. If you have helpful resources on understand this, drop ‘em in the comments as I’m at a loss.
This analog synth playlist has been on all week. I’m obsessed.
Finally, I rag on NYT for too often falling into click bait for the mangerial class, but this article from the FT “What if San Francisco never pulls out of its ‘doom loop’?” feels like the same thing, but for tech leaders. Enough already, San Francisco will be fine.