Jacopo Baima
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Jacopo Baima has not written any posts yet.
Jacopo Baima has not written any posts yet.
I have not read the book so I might not give it justice. But while the topic is greatly worthwhile some of the stories given to explain "the roots of stagnation" seem off to me. I will try to explain why.
On nanotech: the NNI was a US initiative, and it is strange to explain a worldwide setback with a dysfunction of US funding. Europe has a completely different science funding system, with EU-scale funding interacting with different national systems and priorities. A research area that got large centralized funding in the EU is that of nanoscale materials, which above is described as contributing to the death of nanotech in order to get... (read more)
The increased damage is due to building more on the flood plains, which brings economic gains. It is very possible that they outweigh the increased damage. Within standard economics, they should be, unless strongly subsidized insurance (or expectation of state help for the uninsured after a predictable disaster) is messing up the incentives. Then again, standard economics assumes rational agents, which is kind of the opposite of what is discussed in this post...
The straightforward way to force irrational homeowners/business owners/developers to internalize the risk would be compulsory but not subsidized insurance. That's not politically feasible, I think. That's why most governments would use some clunky and probably sub-optimal combination of regulation, subsidized insurance, and other policies (such as getting the same community to pay for part of the insurance subsidies through local taxes).
"I think a good path for nuclear modernization would be to generally reduce nuclear weapon yields while increasing precision"
I am unsure about this. I have the feeling that this is in part the trend going on right now, and that geopolitics experts are very worried, because it gives a path to gradual escalation and makes nuclear war more likely. When nuclear bombs were large and inaccurate, they were kept only as last option of deterrence: it was clear that any use would be followed by a devastating counter-strike with ~100% probability. In contrast, when a military has smaller, well-targeted tactical nukes, there is a temptation to use them for a limited strike,... (read more)