Category Archives: Web Article Review

Avi Loeb says the aliens are coming…again

Avi Loeb always says the aliens are coming for us. Other people say he is wrong because no aliens have conclusively and obviously showed up since he started making these predictions. The disturbing part is that the objects in question are either showing up much more often than they used to and/or much more often than predicted, or else they have always been showing up and we have just recently developed the technology we need to notice that they are there.

“The brightness of the object implies a diameter of 20 km, and there is not enough rocky material in interstellar space to deliver such a giant object per decade,” Loeb said…

He went on to say he thinks there’s a chance that the object could be engineered rather than naturally occurring…

“[31/ATLAS] may come to save us or destroy us,” he said. “We’d better be ready for both options and check whether all interstellar objects are rocks.”

and we really shouldn’t count on the alien mothership running an easily exploitable version of Windows 95 this time

reading list on ecology

This blog post from Geekcologist has a fantastic set of links to classic essays and more recent blog posts on ecological topics. As an amateur (albeit an amateur who just spent 3.5 years thinking about the intersection of ecology and engineering and myself wrote about 250 pages on the topic) who cares about the natural world I think it is critically important to try to understand and grapple with these ideas. Because by and large it is not decisions made by ecologists that are determining the fate of our ecosystems. It is the decisions of politicians, bureaucrats, engineers, architects, planners, and businesspeople of all stripes. Even if we have morals that might cause us to make better ecological choices, we don’t know very much about ecology, and we just aren’t thinking about this every day. Meanwhile, if I were going to criticize ecologists I would say they are just arguing with each other in an echo chamber and not getting through to the rest of society. Or, they are probably getting through to us in elementary school, and then the vast majority forget what we learned in elementary school when we turn into serious and cynical grownups. Anyway, a person could spend a lot of time drilling into the links in this one post. Maybe I will try to do some follow up posts on a handful of them.

the English-speaking world is sad

As an enrolled university student for about three more days, I have access to the Financial Times. The Financial Times did an analysis of World Happiness Index and found that young people across English-speaking countries (US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) are sadder than people in Western Europe. Well, that was the headline anyway, but when I look at the graph it is really just the US and Canada that are the outliers, with the US far worse (of course). US people are very, very sad in their 20s and 30s, and then start to cheer up a lot in their 40s. Of course, this is a snapshot in time and it doesn’t actually mean today’s young adults will cheer up, or that today’s older adults were not cheerful when they were younger. Anyway, this author concludes young people are sad because they don’t own houses. I don’t know, I have owned and rented, and both caused me different forms of aggravation and sadness. But not being able to afford the lifestyle you feel you want or deserve, or conversely stressing yourself to the breaking point so your family can just barely afford it, is a recipe for unhappiness. So it may be true that housing affordability is a good indicator of happiness even if not the root cause. And as for old people, of course they own those high-value houses and that makes them happy! Sure, they have to pay property taxes on those houses, and they complain bitterly about paying taxes. They also go to those NIMBY meetings and complain bitterly about new housing construction that might create more supply for young people. But remember that complaining bitterly is also a thing that makes old people happy! (Sorry, I just got ambushed by a very grumpy older relative over something I have no control over, housing related in fact, and I am feeling grumpy myself as I sit here 44 days before my 50th birthday!)

How do Supreme Leaders invest?

Okay, I’m talking about U.S. Supreme Court justices here. Not to be confused with the Iranian system where an unelected ideological leader for life has the right to overrule the decisions of elected leaders without explanation or question…oh shoot, it is basically the same thing, except we have nine of them!

Anyway, ProPublica has put together a dashboard of data on their required public disclosures. They take a lot of privately-funded trips, most often to speak to students at law schools. That kind of makes sense. But some accept gifts from wealthy individuals, and how can that be anything but corruption? They also write books, and do book tours while in office. This seems strange to me, and I wonder if this sort of thing goes on in other countries. Maybe I can see them writing technical articles in legal journals or trade publications, because other practicing lawyers are going to be interested in what they have to say. But I can also see an argument that they write plenty on the job, and they should put their energy into explaining why and how they came to the decisions on the cases before them.

Anyway, another fun thing is you can click on any justice and see what their retirement portfolios look like. And their retirement portfolios look something like mine, with index funds from companies like Vanguard. Only with more zeros. And real estate tends to be a big chunk – I guess if you own a nice home or two in the New York or DC metro areas and your net worth is only a few multiple millions of dollars (typically 5-10 is what I saw), that one multi-million dollar condo can be a big chunk. Come on, you guys are old and you clearly have a nice retirement setup all queued up. Go for it!

babies with three parents

This is basically what it sounds like. The chromosomes come from two people (still referred to as a “mother” and “father” at this point in history) and the mitochondria come from a third (female) person. The egg is implanted in the (first) female who brings the baby to term and gives birth, but I suppose there is no reason this has to be the case. The purpose (at this point in history) is to avoid certain rare genetic diseases, and this has worked effectively and produced healthy babies.

Mitochondrial donation treatment, or MDT, aims to prevent children from inheriting mutated mitochondria. The procedure involves fertilising the mother’s egg with the father’s sperm and then transferring the genetic material from the nucleus into a fertilised healthy donor egg that has had its own nucleus removed. This creates a fertilised egg with a full set of chromosomes from the parents, but healthy mitochondria from the donor. The egg is then implanted into the womb to establish a pregnancy.

I have no moral objection to this. Reproduction was always inevitably going to get higher tech over time. The problem is more that wealthy people will have access and others won’t, unless or except in places where governments make other choices.

the “digital nomad visa”

This article in Business Insider lists 29 countries that offer some kind of “digital nomad visa”. Be warned this is kind of a junky site with a lot of ads and links. Basically, you have to show that you have a job paying a certain minimum amount and you are allowed to work remotely, and you get a visa to stay often for up to a year depending on the country. There are clusters of countries in Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and Central America making these offers. Other interesting ones include Spain, Portugal, Greece, Iceland, Japan, and UAE (Dubai). The countries have nothing much to lose if you think about it – this is an inflow of money from outside their borders, i.e. essentially an export just like tourism or full-pay international students. If you lose your job, they can kick you out if they want to, or give you a set period of time to find a new one. Singapore is not on this list, but they have a program along these lines as I recall. Not that normal people with normal jobs can afford to live there for any length of time.

Being independently wealthy would be even better of course, but this might be an option for young people, mid-life crisis people without crushing family responsibilities (do these exist?), or not-quite-retired people who still need or want to work.

Are the U.S. Great Lakes cities really our best climate haven candidates?

This article in Planetizen says maybe not. But I think it is all relative, and they may be the best the U.S. has to offer. Cities mentioned in this article are Buffalo, Duluth (MN), Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago, Marquette (MI), Minneapolis, and Toledo.

Here are strikes mentioned against the region, with my thoughts in brackets:

  • invasive aquatic species [sad for aquatic ecosystems and sport fishermen, maybe not a big risk to human wellbeing. Great Lakes fish are not a big source of food that I know of, largely due to legacy industrial pollution. In other words we have already poisoned the ecosystem to a degree that we can’t and don’t rely on it as a major food source.]
  • nutrient pollution from farms and sewage [something I have expertise in, and yes it is a big issue. Agriculture is the much bigger issue because it is massive and essentially unregulated. The article focuses on untreated sewage overflow, which everyone can agree are gross, but treated sewage is the bigger player when it comes to nutrient pollution. People are just another big population of animals, and yes we have better wastewater treatment than the cows and pigs but removing nutrients to the degree needed is very expensive and has not been a historical focus. BUT see my comments above regarding sad for the ecosystem and water-based recreation, not an existential threat to humans. Water-based recreation certainly adds economic value, and I am not discounting this, just again saying not an existential threat.]
  • more intense storms [big issue, with daily tragedies unfolding around the country and world. This region is not immune, but certainly not uniquely vulnerable relative to others.]
  • wildly fluctuating lake levels. [This one is interesting, because the levels in the lakes depend on the seasonal balance of runoff and evaporation, which can fluctuate quite a bit. It’s similar to coastal flooding and sea level rise issues, but on a different time scale. To me, seems like a problem if you are very near a waterfront or in a very low lying area. Certainly an issue, but seems less scary/more manageable than a category 5 hurricane hitting your city with the energy of a nuclear weapon, and/or the slow but irreversible rise in sea level.]
  • pressure to divert water across basin boundaries to areas with groundwater depletion, population growth, and pollution issues. [This region has a strong international legal framework for resisting this pressure. Political pressure chips away at it, but the framework exists and the situation is much better than areas in the southeast (Florida-Georgia) and southwest (basically everywhere from greater Phoenix to greater Las Vegas to greater Los Angeles) that are much more water scarce and lack this strong framework. We have a similarly strong framework for the Delaware basin serving greater New York, New Jersey, and greater Philadelphia, and again not perfect but we do much better than areas without such a framework.]
  • Canadian wildfires [yes, big issue. Very bad for the atmosphere and certainly a short-term health hazard for humans while it is ongoing. Things like this are affecting many regions, and I would rather be inconvenienced in Chicago than scared to death in LA I think.]
  • Adaptation, resilience, and infrastructure investment may be lagging behind regions affected by more acute coastal flooding and fire crises. [Maybe, but no evidence for this is provided. Comparing my native Philadelphia to what I saw and heard on a recent visit to Milwaukee, I’m not sure I buy this.]
  • More extreme winter weather [mostly an inconvenience, but sure some people will die especially if power outages happen during extreme cold. Most areas of the country are dealing with extreme, cold, heat, or both. Is the electric grid in the Midwest in worse shape than other regions? Again, I don’t see this as a unique vulnerability.]

So my verdict is there is no perfect climate haven, but this region still seems like it might be the best the U.S. has to offer. You could point to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine I suppose, but those are not major economic centers unless you count them as part of greater Boston, which is going to face severe coastal issues. In the Midwest you have greater Chicago and greater Toronto, which I see as too big to fail.

https://www.planetizen.com/features/135561-great-lakes-cities-are-touted-climate-refuge-reality-much-more-complex

what’s new in shipbuilding?

We hear that the United States is woefully behind China and other Asian countries, and maybe even Europe, in ship-building. So is it labor cost, labor skill, outdated technology, or some combination that is causing this? Here are a few things being tried at the Philadelphia shipyard, which has recently partnered with a South Korean firm:

The facility builds one and a half ships a year; Hanwha plans to outfit it with “smart yard technology” to speed up manufacturing so it can churn out as many as 10 ships annually and raise sales tenfold, to over $4 billion a year by 2035.

Hanwha’s subsidiary Hanwha Ocean is among the largest shipbuilders in South Korea. Its yard in the country’s southwest produces 40 ships a year…

At the shipyard, Hanwha is bringing in technology from its Korean facilities, including computer-aided design, welding robots and virtual-reality training models. Under a model it calls “cobots,” robots work alongside workers like computer-aided manufacturing and design coordinator Kyle Pernell, with human workers in charge of operating, repairing and programming the robots.

This article is positive, but I remember seeing another article saying that this facility is having trouble finding U.S. workers who are, well, trainable and willing to do this work.

what government policies ACTUALLY increase economic growth?

Wishful thinking and “starve the beast” ideology do not increase the growth rate of a national economy. There are some things that do, according to people who study the evidence (known as economists, although to be fair, some of them are also influenced by ideology if not wishful thinking). According to this Planet Money episode, policies that have been shown by evidence to increase economic growth include:

  • Building housing in cities with numerous and increasing jobs. I always thought of housing as more of a quality of life issue and not something that actually constrains growth, but this makes logical sense. Urban areas (central cities and their suburbs) are where most of the national economy’s growth happens, because they are where most of the workers and innovative ideas are. Available jobs attract people who want jobs, and this can happen faster than the housing market can grow, pushing up prices. At some point, constraints on housing can actually become constraints on growth. People seem to be focusing mostly on the federal government tail trying to wag the municipal government dog in terms of zoning codes, but I have a couple more thoughts to add. First, excellent transportation infrastructure effectively enlarges the housing market that provides access to a given job market. If I could buy a fixer-upper row house in Baltimore and take a bullet train to Manhattan, I would effectively be part of the Manhattan housing market. Our country does not have this (although Baltimore and New York City are connected by some of the best rail our country has to offer, the time and expense of that commute would not be reasonable.) Excellent communication infrastructure also helps, since many professional jobs are now remote or hybrid. Finally, there are technological advances to be made in the construction industry, which has been dead in terms of productivity growth for decades. The big one being talked about is much more factory manufacturing of modular components. Get this figured out, and you can either move some U.S. construction workers to much more productive factory floors, or you can consider allowing immigrant workers in to do these jobs at lower wages, or you can invest in factories in Central and South American economies, thereby relieving some immigration pressure on our borders. Then move it all by electrified freight rail. These are different political choices, but all economic wins. Beyond this technology, I think there are huge gains to be made on construction sites in more efficient risk-based scheduling and logistics, technology-assisted inspections of progress (with drones and cameras), and project controls (AI watching videos of the progress and comparing exactly what is happening on the ground to exactly what was planned, then advising humans on real-time adjustments to the schedule and logistics to manage risk and keep the project on track).
  • Cutting taxes on corporations generally increases growth, because the corporations will invest at least some of the savings in capital goods, work force training, and research and development. But my thought is, why not give them the tax breaks ONLY if they invest the savings in these things, which are also investments in our national economy.
  • Similar to housing, I have always thought of health care as more of a quality of life service and basic human right a benevolent government overseeing a growing economy should be providing to its citizens. But the podcast points out hard evidence that health care investments, particularly for children and low income people, have an economic payoff in terms of reduced health care costs and increased earning (and tax-paying) potential later in life.
  • Allowing in highly skilled immigrants benefits the economy.
  • Investing in the electric grid yields a greater payout in terms of lower energy costs than whatever is invested.
  • Research and development, in things OTHER THAN weapons and war, yields a big return to the economy. Investing in weapons and war crowds out more productive investments the government could be making.
  • The particular webpage covering the podcast doesn’t talk about education, but I know I have seen elsewhere that investments in childcare and education yield big benefits, particularly early childhood education.

So: housing and construction productivity; health care; childcare and education; research and development; incentives for corporate R&D, capital investment, and work force development; transportation and telecommunications infrastructure. Raise $1 in taxes, invest it in these areas, get back more than $1, and you could theoretically give the dividend back to the person who gave you the dollar, and everybody wins. Way too rational for our so-called political economy. And this doesn’t include rational risk management, like making sure those urban areas where most of the economic activity and housing are do not get destroyed by floods and fires.

climate change vs. volcanoes

Climate change is scary. Earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis are scary. But these disasters are unrelated, right? Not so fast, says the Guardian. Losing ice in places like Iceland, South America, and Antarctica changes the pressure on underground magma chambers and can trigger eruptions. And apparently there are “at least 100” active volcanoes under Antarctica.

There is no discussion of how all this will affect the secret Nazi and alien bases under Antarctica.