European philanthropy dearth is likely high tax-rate fatigue. If people already expect their governments to spend their copious tax revenues on common services, many of them feel they're already tapped out. There's even a popular opinion that over-reliance on charity is the mark of a failed society. Recent attempts to start college alumni "development" efforts are cynically seen as bribery programes for graduates to grease the skids for their sub-standard kids to skip ahead in the admissions line.
On Silicon Valley fabs, it was an economic calculus: Cheaper land, power, and water, plus tax incentives in places like Arizona and Texas. Also, since line workers in fabs aren't paid as well as the executives, circuit designers, and venture capitalist wallahs, they can no longer afford live close to work.
"Silvio Berlusconi’s governments in Italy drove reforms that moved much of the population from ‘defined benefit’ pensions to savings-focused ‘defined contribution’ pensions."
Actually, the reforms you are referring to were not implemented by Berlusconi's governments. These are the Dini reform (1995) and Fornero reform (2011, Monti government).
You may have confused them with the Sacconi reform (2010, Berlusconi government) which was a more straightforward increase of the pension age plus some tweaks at the margin.
I can think of a couple mechanisms designed to work better with use, but I don't think these are self-improving in the same way that a computer program can find different METHODS to perform its function.
One example is disk brakes. As the pad wears away, the piston moves ever so slightly inward on its rubber gasket, so its range of motion is now slightly closer to the disk. Another is Knight sleeve-valve engines, which performed better as carbon buillt up on the valve mechanism.
I'm pretty sure the answer to both the request for a piece on apartments and the apparent lack of multi-family housing in sub Saharan Africa are found at the intersection of contract law and finance.
On that note, there is a story to be written about the curious postwar three-way split of Western European housing markets:
1. German-speaking Europe bucking the postwar trend of favouring owner-occupation by policy.
2. The rise of owner-occupied blocks of flats, which become very common in France, Spain, Sweden and Finland.
3. The British isles and the Benelux countries retaining a sharp divide between owner-occupied houses and blocks of rental flats.
The Africa question is the slave trade — "The impacts of slavery on Africa are widespread and diverse. Computerized calculations have projected that if there had been no slave trade, the population of Africa would have been 50 million instead of 25 million in 1850. Evidence also suggests that the slave trade contributed to the long-term colonization and exploitation of Africa. Communities and infrastructure were so damaged by the slave trade that they could not be rebuilt and strengthened before the arrival of European colonizers in the 19th century." https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/africa-human-geography/
About malaria, in the countries around Mediterranean the case was more or less the same. Around Greece, especially in areas close to water you will still find hundreds of eucalyptus trees planted, a reminder of early preventive measures. It is also interesting to look into the G6PD enzyme deficiency as it is related to malaria. It is believed that people who have it (myself included) are resistant to the disease. The connection with malaria is based on the geographical distribution of this particular enzyme deficiency (can be mostly found on men around the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia) and the hostile nature of red blood cells for the malaria parasite.
Agree with Gunnar re: Silicon Valley fabs. The Bay Area is /incredibly/ land-constrained. You could talk about land use rules in the Bay and California which have made that land more expensive or difficult to build on, but that wouldn't be a new topic -- that idea is the animating power behind one of the fastest growing political movements in recent memory (the YIMBY movement) which has solid control of the California state legislature now, and the argument is explained in One Billion Substacks and plenty of very popular books (see Abundance). So it wouldn't be a super novel analysis. But even if you didn't have those political factors present in CA and the Bay, there just isn't a lot of land and the place is earthquake-prone. Even if you had the money to buy the land, there are more beneficial uses of the same land willing to pay more because they rely on agglomeration effects more (design vs construction). Add to that tax incentives, etc.
As a lawyer and a Bay Area politics specialist of sorts I need to be aware that the average person might not be cognizant of the Bay Area land use debates, but I do think there wouldn't be much untrod ground there.
It might be interesting to ask why fabs aren't built between the Bay and Sacramento, where there is plenty of land (albeit mainly farmland which itself can be pricey/protected), but the answer might just be that it is far enough away from the design hubs in the Valley and commuting is enough of a pain that might as well send them to wherever is cheapest. In an alternate world of greater BART integration between SV and the cities past Antioch maybe things would be different but the land cost is kinda the ultimate answer.
> Surprising ethno-linguistic enclaves around the world
Not sure whether this would be related or not but, there's a village in Indonesia called Baubau in Buton island, that make use of Korea's alphabet, Hangul, for preserving their own local language.
Two of these are fairly oblivious:
European philanthropy dearth is likely high tax-rate fatigue. If people already expect their governments to spend their copious tax revenues on common services, many of them feel they're already tapped out. There's even a popular opinion that over-reliance on charity is the mark of a failed society. Recent attempts to start college alumni "development" efforts are cynically seen as bribery programes for graduates to grease the skids for their sub-standard kids to skip ahead in the admissions line.
On Silicon Valley fabs, it was an economic calculus: Cheaper land, power, and water, plus tax incentives in places like Arizona and Texas. Also, since line workers in fabs aren't paid as well as the executives, circuit designers, and venture capitalist wallahs, they can no longer afford live close to work.
Yeah, that was my reaction as soon as I read this: "we give our governments a sensible amount of money and they actually do stuff"
Venture Captialist Wallahs? What does that mean?
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/wallah
Interesting use of the word
"Silvio Berlusconi’s governments in Italy drove reforms that moved much of the population from ‘defined benefit’ pensions to savings-focused ‘defined contribution’ pensions."
Actually, the reforms you are referring to were not implemented by Berlusconi's governments. These are the Dini reform (1995) and Fornero reform (2011, Monti government).
You may have confused them with the Sacconi reform (2010, Berlusconi government) which was a more straightforward increase of the pension age plus some tweaks at the margin.
The not-so-actionable takeaway from the Italian pension reforms is:
1) have a constitution and political tradition that encourages the formation of technocratic government in times of crisis
2) have a budget crisis
Unfortunately, that does not make a good story for an article :)
Incidentally, I found these to be great LLM prompts.
Can you elaborate on the recursive self improvement?
Because at first, and second, glance, the answer is yes: biological evolution, and never otherwise?
I can think of a couple mechanisms designed to work better with use, but I don't think these are self-improving in the same way that a computer program can find different METHODS to perform its function.
One example is disk brakes. As the pad wears away, the piston moves ever so slightly inward on its rubber gasket, so its range of motion is now slightly closer to the disk. Another is Knight sleeve-valve engines, which performed better as carbon buillt up on the valve mechanism.
Yes but that's not recursive, it is never better than how we designed it
They mean a technology in the normal sense of something invented by people.
Well, that's what I thought too, but then I think the answer is none, never, that's Yudkowsky's whole point??
At a stretch one could say rhetoric, for example, but I don't think that's what they are getting at either?
The closest things I know of are using machine tools to make machine tools and https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/16/1125146/civilization-start-kit-open-source-essential-machines/
Yes, but again the recursivity is us, no tool is ever any better than we made it. Here we are talking recursivity independent of us.
Yeah, I agree, I haven't gotten very close.
This new article explains the recent rise in US electricity prices (in a manner fit for economists and other specialists).
Not as econometrically sophisticated as would be nice, but very good at presenting the basic story. (Not old or obscure.)
https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/factors-influencing-recent-trends
I’ve discussed it here along with some other ideas in a short piece.
https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/low-energy-fridays-why-are-electricity-rates-rising/
And this just published comment on the LBNL study https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/study-brings-light-to-heated-discussion-over-rising-electricity-bills/
Also: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/whats-happening-to-wholesale-electricity
I'm pretty sure the answer to both the request for a piece on apartments and the apparent lack of multi-family housing in sub Saharan Africa are found at the intersection of contract law and finance.
On that note, there is a story to be written about the curious postwar three-way split of Western European housing markets:
1. German-speaking Europe bucking the postwar trend of favouring owner-occupation by policy.
2. The rise of owner-occupied blocks of flats, which become very common in France, Spain, Sweden and Finland.
3. The British isles and the Benelux countries retaining a sharp divide between owner-occupied houses and blocks of rental flats.
Thnx for the shout out.
The Africa question is the slave trade — "The impacts of slavery on Africa are widespread and diverse. Computerized calculations have projected that if there had been no slave trade, the population of Africa would have been 50 million instead of 25 million in 1850. Evidence also suggests that the slave trade contributed to the long-term colonization and exploitation of Africa. Communities and infrastructure were so damaged by the slave trade that they could not be rebuilt and strengthened before the arrival of European colonizers in the 19th century." https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/africa-human-geography/
About malaria, in the countries around Mediterranean the case was more or less the same. Around Greece, especially in areas close to water you will still find hundreds of eucalyptus trees planted, a reminder of early preventive measures. It is also interesting to look into the G6PD enzyme deficiency as it is related to malaria. It is believed that people who have it (myself included) are resistant to the disease. The connection with malaria is based on the geographical distribution of this particular enzyme deficiency (can be mostly found on men around the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia) and the hostile nature of red blood cells for the malaria parasite.
Agree with Gunnar re: Silicon Valley fabs. The Bay Area is /incredibly/ land-constrained. You could talk about land use rules in the Bay and California which have made that land more expensive or difficult to build on, but that wouldn't be a new topic -- that idea is the animating power behind one of the fastest growing political movements in recent memory (the YIMBY movement) which has solid control of the California state legislature now, and the argument is explained in One Billion Substacks and plenty of very popular books (see Abundance). So it wouldn't be a super novel analysis. But even if you didn't have those political factors present in CA and the Bay, there just isn't a lot of land and the place is earthquake-prone. Even if you had the money to buy the land, there are more beneficial uses of the same land willing to pay more because they rely on agglomeration effects more (design vs construction). Add to that tax incentives, etc.
As a lawyer and a Bay Area politics specialist of sorts I need to be aware that the average person might not be cognizant of the Bay Area land use debates, but I do think there wouldn't be much untrod ground there.
It might be interesting to ask why fabs aren't built between the Bay and Sacramento, where there is plenty of land (albeit mainly farmland which itself can be pricey/protected), but the answer might just be that it is far enough away from the design hubs in the Valley and commuting is enough of a pain that might as well send them to wherever is cheapest. In an alternate world of greater BART integration between SV and the cities past Antioch maybe things would be different but the land cost is kinda the ultimate answer.
> Surprising ethno-linguistic enclaves around the world
Not sure whether this would be related or not but, there's a village in Indonesia called Baubau in Buton island, that make use of Korea's alphabet, Hangul, for preserving their own local language.
seems fairly easy to spin up a gpt-5 pro deep research report then feed it in to claude to write the post, no?
like this took me 20 mins: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EOHpTbTNI8Ir6wkiyTp3ZMSmPlSP6GNTQ0AetWRpE2E/edit?usp=sharing
Impressive, I learned something
$500 sequencing? Try $80!
https://fleetwood.dev/sequencing_costs.png