357: Cloud Stocks Performance, iPhone Killers, FTC vs Microsoft, Wind Power, LNG, Clarinet Investor, and Hydropower

“Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems That Never Happened”

He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views. —William Congreve

🗣🎙♾ 🔁 I had a great time recording a new episode of Infinite Loops with my friend Jim O’Shaughnessy (💚 🥃). We talked about all kinds of things (no agenda, so it went in all kinds of directions, which is part of the fun).

Some topics we touched on: machine learning and AI, possibilities in science & medicine, creativity as a blessing & curse, the impact of language on personality and being multi-lingual, the power of networks, existential risk, and more.

You can listen here:

• 🎧 Liberty RPF — On Creation and Curation (EP.134)

And if you missed it last year, here’s our first podcast together:

• 🎧 LibertyRPF — The Great Reshuffle & Decline of Gatekeepers (EP.72)

📄 That’s a good paper title, worth pondering for a few beats:

“Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems That Never Happened”

(h/t friend-of-the-show and supporter 💚 🥃 Cedric Chin)

🏃‍♂️👟❄️ On Wednesday, I ran for the 50th time since I began running last Spring.

It was the first time since it started snowing here, so it was interesting to try to figure out how to dress in layers so I didn’t freeze *or* melt, and see if the Xero TeraFlex II trail shoes would do well with some snow/ice on the ground.

So far so good!

I still love minimalist shoes. Even though the TerraFlex are stiffer than the HFS because they’re waterproof, warmer, and have a lot more grip, they’re still way lighter and more flexible than regular shoes, without an elevated heel or cushioning.

My running pace has kind of plateaued in recent months, but I don’t mind, I’m not trying to reach any specific short-term goal, I just want to keep doing this for the long term.

🇩🇪🌥 Solar power in Germany, via friend-of-the-show Doomberg (🟩 🐓):

Germany has roughly the same average solar irradiance level as Michigan or Maine [...] According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Germany’s solar capacity factor was just 11% in 2020.

Doomberg tries to estimate how long it would take for the panels to generate enough energy to “repay” all the energy used to mine and refine the raw materials used to make them, the energy used for manufacturing (polysilicon melted in 1,900+°C arc furnaces… electrolytic smelting of aluminium to make the support structures, etc), and then to transport and install the panels.

A nuclear power plant is estimated to take a few weeks to repay its entropic debt. Solar panels in places like Germany may take 10+ years. 😬

⚠️ Ivan Vendrov paraphrasing this 1955 talk by John von Neumann:

Von Neumann on existential risk: 

Progress is chaotic so investments in planning are much less useful than investments in better control systems. Don't build Maginot lines, develop better command structures. Shorten your OODA loop. Response speed is everything.

Here is the man himself:

For progress there is no cure. Any attempt to find automatically safe channels for the present explosive variety of progress must lead to frustration. The only safety possible is relative, and it lies in an intelligent exercise of day-to-day judgment. [...]

All experience shows that even smaller technological changes than those now in the cards profoundly transform political and social relationships. Experience also shows that these transformations are not a priori predictable and that most contemporary "first guesses" concerning them are wrong. 

Day-to-day judgment! Speed! That’s a scary thought… Common sense is all but common! And speed is a rarity in the large organizations that can affect large-scale issues…

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