Writes about economics, posts about rabbits. For serious opinions/analysis, read my blog: noahpinion.blog
San Francisco, CA
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I wrote a retrospective on 25 years of San Francisco tech culture, and how the scene has changed:
noahpinion.blog/p/four-eras-โฆ
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
Japan's defense ministry just moved at startup speed.
June 5: ATLA (@atla_kouhou_en ) opens interceptor drone program. 38 companies apply.
July: 4 go to live field tests.
Aug 25: Mass production contract to @TerraDrone_JP, the only one that passed.
Sept: first deliveries this month
Under 3 months.
Speed to delivery was a scoring criterion.
Could this be the new playbook?
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
Really really good account of how SF tech has changed over the years, matches my experience
I wrote a retrospective on 25 years of San Francisco tech culture, and how the scene has changed:
noahpinion.blog/p/four-eras-โฆ
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
Donโt say you love the anime if you havenโt read the manga
EAs have crazy ethical views like "consequentialism" and something called a "zero social discount rate" which is why I prefer to get my AI policy takes from classical libertarians like Tyler Cowen
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
iโm no comms expert or anything, but idk if this is the message you wanna lead with.
Tomorrow on the show: @JensenHuang, the CEO of NVIDIA, who thinks A.I. fear is getting way out of hand.
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The four eras of SF tech culture correspond to four different technologies that were at the center of the city's innovation ecosystem at different times:
1. The Web
2. Social-Mobile
3. Crypto
4. AI
I wrote a retrospective on 25 years of San Francisco tech culture, and how the scene has changed:
noahpinion.blog/p/four-eras-โฆ
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I wonder if and when China would have invented AI if Europe and America had never existed.
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This is great. Europe should put more tariffs on Chinese products, in order to push Chinese companies to make their products overseas -- which will give industrialization a boost in poor countries all over the world.
NEW: The big story is not Chinese EVs everywhere โbut Chinese EV factories everywhere.
And its not just Chinese firms going out. Our CM-FDI database tracks every foreign Solar, Wind, EV and battery manufacturing plant built in 21st century. cmfdi.netzeropolicylab.com
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This was the theory Merlin told King Arthur in "The Once and Future King".
I had not realised before that the Bronze Age Collapse was literally *caused* by iron.
Bronze age powers like the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians used bronze weapons, made by combining copper and tin. Tin was so scarce that only the richest and most powerful groups could access it and the bronze weapons it allowed. (Tin was so rare that it was being transported from Cornwall to the Middle East more than 1000 years BC.) The scarcity of tin gave these empires a near-monopoly on violence.
Iron weapons are not actually any better than bronze ones โ they're not stronger or easier to work with, as I'd assumed. They're just much, much easier to mass produce once you have bloomeries, which are the first furnaces that were hot enough to melt iron in a way that made them useable for weapons.
Bloomeries meant that iron ore, which was widespread, could be used to make weapons anywhere. That led to warlords, bandits and city-states rising in a massive decentralization of military power, which the Bronze Age empires were unable to resist.
After the invention of the bloomery, skeletons show a measurable increase in weapon-inflicted injuries. 'Destruction layers' with bones and signs of burning have been found from this time at archaeological sites including Troy. Ancient writers โ including Herodotus, Ovid, and the writers of the Old Testament โ believed the invention of iron had unleashed a new age of violence.
New at Works in Progress, WEAPONS OF MASS DECENTRALIZATION: how iron itself brought about the Bronze Age Collapse. And what technologies could do the same today?
worksinprogress.co/issue/weaโฆ
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
WaPo editorial board says let the Chinese cars in: washingtonpost.com/opinions/โฆ
Great piece, imo
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
The Dem senate polling is so good at this point โ 54 seats slightly more likely than 50 โ that I genuinely cannot bring myself to believe it's true no matter what @NateSilver538 and @lxeagle17 tell me.
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
To be clear, Iโve always said that Chinese AI leaders were very explicit about aiming for AGI and even RSI.
Itโs Chinese political leaders who donโt seem AGI-pilled. And that matters a lot because thatโs the great fear in Washington. highcapacity.org/p/does-chinโฆ
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
In the Mayor Lurie vs Mayor Mamdani Abundance sweepstakes, there is no contest
Mamdani's housing agency is upzoning for Missing Massive to turn its HQโone buildingโinto half a decade of new SF housing
Lurie, meanwhile, is fighting in court to avoid fully implementing SB79
New renderings of 100 Gold St, an NYC EDC project that is now expected to yield 4K units, including 1K affordable. It will also fund a new senior center and new office space for the city, all without public subsidy.
Really maximizing the value of public land here
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
This Kalshi ad is among the most dystopian ones Iโve seen from any betting app
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Noah Smith ๐๐บ๐ธ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ retweeted
this for intl founders๐ donโt linkedin or whatsapp while in town, stick to signal/imessage
one of the biggest disadvantages intl founders have in tech is that they default to whatsapp when sf runs primarily on signal/imessage
response time difference can be 60s vs 2-12 hours on whatsapp
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The cyberpunk future is entertaining but dumb
Orange County district attorney is buying e-bikes and crushing them, and also prosecuting parents for letting kids ride them.
Finally, we have one trend that gets kids out of the house, and we throw their parents in jail!
No wonder everything sucks now.
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