Read Along With Me!
Understanding NIMBYism, defense re-industrialization, beagles on Mars, AI welfare, the job market and more!
One of the best things about my job as the program manager at The Roots of Progress Institute is that I get to read so much interesting and high quality writing (much of it written or recommended by our wonderful fellows!) Here is a selection of the writing I read in the last few months:
📖 Feature Writing
The Maintenance Race, Steward Brand
I hear tell that this is one of the most popular essays every published by Works in Progress. I can see why. It’s beautiful, just beautiful. And all the better if you like sailing.
Slaying the Speckled Monster, Jason Crawford
Did you know that the word vaccine comes from the use of cowpox for innoculations against smallpox? (Get it? Like the Latin word vacca for cow). Well, now you do. This whole history is bonkers from start to finish. At one point people were actually walking live infected cows around so they could have access to “fresh” vaccines.
Sorry, but this is the future of food, Michael Grunwald
Industrial farming may be messy and not-nice, but we’re stuck with it, according to Michael Grunwald. At a minimum we need to tolerate it because it’s the most efficient way of producing food and leaving as much land as possible free from agricultural uses. (Should that be our goal? Not sure!). Interesting essay from a very skilled/seasoned journalist working in the climate/agriculture/cultured meat space.
🍭 Brain Candy
Home is where the cartel is, Steve Randy Waldman
If you kind get where NIMBYs are coming from but find it hard to articulate, this essay will clarify it for you. Waldman makes a lot of good points about why YIMBY arguments sometimes fall on deaf ears. Overall, this essay re-enforced my developing belief that what the YIMBY movement needs more than anything else is great story-telling.
Maverick, the first dog on Mars, Rob L’Heureux
A speculative retrospective Wikipedia-style article on the contested efforts to bring canine companions to Mars in an effort to combat “instances of depression in colonists suffering from ‘dead world syndrome.’” You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and in the end you’ll fall in love with Maverick the beagle, the first dog to set foot on mars. Come for the “Homeward Bound” vibes, stay for the actually important insights about the human propensity to be self-indulgently obstructionistic in almost any scenario.
WHY ARE THERE NO FUCKING JOBS?, Femcel
A wildly distressed article from a very frustrated young person. I low-key want to write a whole book responding to this article. Such an interesting window into a particular affective state and set of beliefs about what is happening in the world/economy/an individual person’s professional life. I empathize and am very intrigued. Also, for some bonus reading, here is Derek Thompson in The Atlantic with some context. As it turns out, Femcel’s experience is less histrionic than you might think and more a reflection of a legitimately bleak hiring landscape.
💼 Serious Business
The theses of the defense reformation, Shyam Sankar
In case you hadn’t heard, defense procurement and innovation has become sclerotic. Shyam Sankar (the CTO of Palantir) has prescribed an ambitious cure: eighteen theses. From monopsony to cost-plus accounting, he seems to know what ails the American defense industrial base. You’re made of sturdier stuff than me if you don’t come away a little scared after reading this. Thank you to for the recommendation. Bonus points if you read Eric Lofgren’s paper on Cost and Competition in U.S. Defense Acquisition.
Taking AI Welfare Seriously, Robert Long, Et. Al.
This is a whopper of a paper. It’s 43 pages long, so save it to Reader, and sit down with it sometime when you are feeling contemplative and open-minded. Because unless you are part of a very small group of people who already takes AI sentience seriously, you probably aren’t too worried about the wellbeing of man-made silicon-based AI models. AI with feelings was a nice conceit for “Westworld,” “Humans” and “Battlestar Galactica,” but not something anyone has the bandwidth for atm, what with, you know, all the other stuff to worry about. Right? You might feel differently after you read this paper.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Re-read this for the first time since high school as an example of what really impactful zeitgeist changing writing can look like. I did not expect it to move me to tears.
Machines of Loving Grace, Dario Amodei
”We are not use to thinking in this way—to asking ‘how much does being smarter help with this task, and on what timescale?’” More than anything else I’ve read about AI, this Dario’s thesis left me feeling persuaded. And yet… there feels like a kind of messianic vibe to his (and others) expectations of AI. Idk.
Retrieving Realism: A Whiteheadian Wager, Matthew T. Segall
I’m not erudite enough to explain what this is about. But if you want to make your brain really work, give it a go. (The best I can do is to say its about different philosophies and how they approach the question of the knowability of reality)
🤝 Service Journalism
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online, David Perell
Since Write of Passage is no more, this is the next best thing. David Perell’s mastery of the online writing game is on full display in this comprehensive guide to, well, writing online. The visuals are particularily on point. I never run out of metaphors for writing, but I haven’t ever seen illustrations this effective. If you write online and haven’t read this yet, you should.