Opportunities

• The Roots of Progress Blog-Building Intensive endorsed by @sapinker, @vpostrel, @johanknorberg, @CharlesCMann, @antonhowes, @s8mb, @kevin2kelly, @Marian_L_Tupy, @atrembath, @jposhaughnessy, @eric_is_weird, @CJHandmer, @srajagopalan, @s_r_constantin, @danielgolliher, @krishnanrohit, and @krisgulati
• Progress studies meetup in Miami on Saturday, July 22
• Progress studies reading group (via @jayendra_ram)
• Hollywood for Intellectuals: Writing Big Ideas for the Big (and Small) Screen
• University of Austin’s summer high school program (via @mbateman, who will be teaching there)
• Sid Sijbrandij wants a postdoc to help him learn about incentive structures
• Loyal (longevity startup) starting to look for a board member

Announcements

• Elon Musk announces x.ai (via @pitdesi)
• Claude 2 improves performance in coding, math and reasoning (via @AnthropicAI)
• Major new AI alignment effort from OpenAI (via @janleike)
• Fundraiser for an asylum-seeker who left Russia rather than fight Ukraine (organized by @Marian_L_Tupy)

Audio & video

• Very good Kevin Esvelt talk on securing DNA synthesis against misuse
• Panel discussion on fundamental research featuring me and others (via @PrimeMoversLab, recorded last October but just published)
• Nick Touran (@whatisnuclear) has been scanning old film of nuclear reactors: here’s one about a reactor that powered a military radar station and one about a prototype nuclear cargo ship

Other links

• A “protein printer” could “change biology as much as printers changed the news.” Related, “DNA printers are on the cusp of a big upgrade”
• “The power to maintain is the power to improve.” Stewart Brand on auto maintenance
• The prospects of molecular manufacturing (via @annasofialesiv)
• Cleaning wool in classical times (via @NadyaWilliams81)
• Brian Potter tells the story of titanium
• Moralizing about consumption vs. economic reality (via @atrembath)
• The Engineering and Technology History Wiki (via @Ben_Reinhardt)

Queries

• Who have been the best research and development leaders in industry history?
• What is the best writing about positive AI futures?
• Which companies have incredibly thorough, detailed books written about them?
• Foundational texts for a course on economic growth? (And some actual examples)
• What happened to public trust in government in 1964?

Quotes

• “A goddess enthroned on a car”: automobiles represented empowerment for women
• A Ford factory as “a daring expression of the human spirit”
• We used to terraform
• The importance of statistics in the spread of sanitation and hygiene practices
• Deirdre McCloskey on the British Empire
• Wisdom from James Watt Jr.
• Bones evolved via biochemical recycling
• The bill creating Social Security was only 37 pages long

Other tweets

• Many people upset about this weed zapper, but the alternative is spraying poison
• Gardens in late-19th c. Paris produced crops using manure from city horses
• Rather than “work” vs. “post-work”, the reality is a continuous, gradual change
• A new technology that could reduce costs of whole-brain connectomics by 1000x
• Portable MRIs are a thing now
• Academics once saw their work as in service to engineers/industry
• Project idea: a series of studies of how different technologies got cheaper
• “You cannot separate the ability to make a decision from the ability to make a wrong decision”
• Safety is only one reason to want self-driving cars, and not necessarily the top one
• Glenn Seaborg, who discovered plutonium and several other elements. See also my essay on nuclides
• Richard Ngo is “optimistic about almost all aspects of AI”
• Alex Tabarrok’s message to Americans: “double down on America”
• We need a capitalism appreciation day (or a course)
• “The Age of Invention,” a proto-steampunk card game

• Treadwheel cranes were a real thing

Charts

• The world has made enormous progress against diarrheal diseases

• Different types of prefab building systems according to Brian Potter

Beauty

• Quantum computer aesthetics