SuperFreakonomics on Geoengineering, Revisited
Geoengineering first came to much of the public’s attention in Levitt and Dubner’s 2009 book SuperFreakonomics. Levitt and Dubner were heavily criticized and their chapter on geoengineering was called patent nonsense, dangerous and error-ridden, unforgivably wrong and much more. A decade and a half later, it’s become clear that Levitt and Dubner were foresighted and mostly correct.
The good news is that climate change is a solved problem. Solar, wind, nuclear and various synthetic fuels can sustain civilization and put us on a long-term neutral footing. Per capita CO2 emissions are far down in developed countries and total emissions are leveling for the world. The bad news is that 200 years of putting carbon into the atmosphere still puts us on a warming trend for a long time. To deal with the immediate problem there is probably only one realistic and cost-effective solution: geoengineering. Geoengineering remains “fiendishly simple” and “startlingly cheap” and it will almost certainly be necessary. On this score, the world is catching up to Levitt and Dubner.
Fred Pearce: Once seen as spooky sci-fi, geoengineering to halt runaway climate change is now being looked at with growing urgency. A spate of dire scientific warnings that the world community can no longer delay major cuts in carbon emissions, coupled with a recent surge in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, has left a growing number of scientists saying that it’s time to give the controversial technologies a serious look.
“Time is no longer on our side,” one geoengineering advocate, former British government chief scientist David King, told a conference last fall. “What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years.”
King helped secure the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, but he no longer believes cutting planet-warming emissions is enough to stave off disaster. He is in the process of establishing a Center for Climate Repair at Cambridge University. It would be the world’s first major research center dedicated to a task that, he says, “is going to be necessary.”
Similarly, here is climate scientist David Keith in the NYTimes:
The energy infrastructure that powers our civilization must be rebuilt, replacing fossil fuels with carbon-free sources such as solar or nuclear. But even then, zeroing out emissions will not cool the planet. This is a direct consequence of the single most important fact about climate change: Warming is proportional to the cumulative emissions over the industrial era.
Eliminating emissions by about 2050 is a difficult but achievable goal. Suppose it is met. Average temperatures will stop increasing when emissions stop, but cooling will take thousands of years as greenhouse gases slowly dissipate from the atmosphere. Because the world will be a lot hotter by the time emissions reach zero, heat waves and storms will be worse than they are today. And while the heat will stop getting worse, sea level will continue to rise for centuries as polar ice melts in a warmer world. This July was the hottest month ever recorded, but it is likely to be one of the coolest Julys for centuries after emissions reach zero.
Stopping emissions stops making the climate worse. But repairing the damage, insofar as repair is possible, will require more than emissions cuts.
…Geoengineering could also work. The physical scale of intervention is — in some respects — small. Less than two million tons of sulfur per year injected into the stratosphere from a fleet of about a hundred high-flying aircraft would reflect away sunlight and cool the planet by a degree. The sulfur falls out of the stratosphere in about two years, so cooling is inherently short term and could be adjusted based on political decisions about risk and benefit.
Adding two million tons of sulfur to the atmosphere sounds reckless, yet this is only about one-twentieth of the annual sulfur pollution from today’s fossil fuels.
Even the Biden White House has signaled that geoengineering is on the table.
Geoengineering remains absurdly cheap, Casey Handmer calculates:
Indeed, if we want to offset the heat of 1 teraton of CO2, we need to launch 1 million tonnes of SO2 per year, costing just $350m/year. This is about 5% of the US’ annual production of sulfur. This costs less than 0.1% on an annual basis of the 40 year program to sequester a trillion tonnes of CO2.
…Stepping beyond the scolds, the gatekeepers, the fatalists and the “nyet” men, we’re going to have to do something like this if we don’t want to ruin the prospects of humanity for 100 generations, so now is the time to think about it.
Detractors claim that geoengineering is playing god, fraught with risk and uncertainty. But these arguments are riddled with omission-commission bias. Carbon emissions are, in essence, a form of inadvertent geoengineering. Solar radiation engineering, by comparison, seems far less perilous. Moreover, we are already doing solar radiation engineering just in reverse: International regulations which required shippers to reduce the sulphur content of marine fuels have likely increased global warming! (See also this useful thread.) . Thus, we’re all geoengineers, consciously or not. The only question is whether we are geoengineering to reduce or to increase global warming.
Global (and American) happiness these days
Our world, in a nutshell, good and bad:
Neither the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) nor data used in the World Happiness Report from the Gallup World Poll shifted much in response to negative shocks. The HDI has been rising in the last decade or so reflecting overall improvements in economic and social wellbeing, captured in part by real earnings growth, although it fell slightly after 2020 as life expectancy dipped. This secular improvement is mirrored in life satisfaction which has been rising in the last decade. However, so too have negative affect in Europe and despair in the USA.
That is from a new NBER working paper by David G. Blanchflower and Alex Bryson.
How to assign property rights in actor AI likenesses
This is an issue in the Actors and Writers Guild strikes, with a key issue being whether studios should be making “take it or leave it” offers which give them rights to the AI likenesses in perpetuity, even for extras. Here is part of my take in my latest Bloomberg column:
I suggest that the eventual strike settlement forbid studios from buying the rights to AI likenesses for more than a single film or project. Or, as a compromise, the contract could be for some limited number of projects, but not in perpetuity. Actors thus would remain in long-run control of their AI likenesses, yet if they wanted to keep selling those likenesses – project by project – they could do so.
Note that this proposal is along some dimensions quite inegalitarian. That is, future stars would end up much richer and the large numbers of actors who fail would end up slightly poorer. They would not be paid small upfront sums for rights that would quickly become worthless.
We can feel better about that trade-off if we consider the interests of the fans. Many people (myself included) enjoy the image and thought of Han Solo (one of Ford’s most famous roles), whether or not they are paying money in a given year to see the Star Wars movies. Would those fans prefer that Ford or some movie studio be in control of the Han Solo image?
The answer may depend on the wisdom and aesthetic taste of the actor in question, but overall I would opt for actor control of the AI likenesses. At least some actors will care about the quality of the projects their likenesses are attached to, rather than just seeking to maximize profit from deploying the likenesses. So, if the question is whether an AI likeness of Han Solo can greet visitors at the entrance to a Disney ride, Disney might say yes but Ford might say no, or at least he would have that choice.
Having celebrity images remain scarce rather than overexposed is a good aesthetic decision, even if it keeps some market power in the hands of Ford, his eventual heirs and future movie stars more generally. With these additional restraints on AI likenesses, we will likely end up with a more exciting, less tired and less overexposed kind of celebrity culture, and I hope that leads to broader social benefits, if only by cultivating better taste among fans and viewers.
Such a proposal is not so unusual when viewed in a broader context. Standard labor contracts don’t allow you to sell your labor to your boss in perpetuity, as you always retain the right to quit. Few people consider that limitation on contracting objectionable, as it protects human liberty against some hasty or ill-conceived decisions, such as selling yourself into slavery. If your AI likeness ends up being such a good substitute for your physical being, as it seems our current technological track may bring, why should we not consider similar restrictions on the contracts for the AI likeness?
Worth a ponder, these are not easy issues.
Fireside chat with Vitalik
No, I don’t think this one will go public, but you can see my earlier 2018 CWT with him. In any case, do you all have suggestions as to what I should ask? Note that the audience is (likely) by no means crypto specialists.
I thank you in advance for your usual wisdom and counsel.
Sunday assorted links
1. Economic development as reflected in the emotions expressed in paintings, as measured by AI.
2. The only thing keeping South Africa from collapse is its private sector (Bloomberg).
4. Good Anna Gát review of Oppenheimer. And good Henry Oliver review.
5. Sri Lanka update.
6. How well do some commonly-recognized happiness strategies work? Recommended, both the thread and the paper.
When is best in life to read or reread many of the greatest classic novels?
First of all, and most of all, read them when you are young (teens and 20s) so they can still influence the longer trajectory of your life!
But let’s say you are past that point. It seems to me an optimal amount of waiting is in order. You want at least one of your rereads to come at the near-peak of your knowledge, understanding, and emotional development. So age 60 might be better than age 47, if only to maximize appreciation?
I suspect that at age 80 you have lost a bit too much emotional energy to appreciate them as much as possible? But that is debatable, and perhaps for some people that point sets in before age 60.
Most generally, another reread is usually a good idea, no matter what your age.
Should you spread those rereads out over time, or is there a case for bunching at a single mini-era in your life?
In London and Siena I have been rereading Thomas Hardy’s 1878 Return of the Native, Hardy of course being one of the all-time greats.
More on Singapore and public sector talent development
From an anonymous correspondent, I will not indent:
“As a Singaporean, I appreciated your recent post on Singapore and the self-perpetuating nature of its establishment. I wanted to raise three points that may be of interest to you, which seem to also be under-discussed outside of Singapore.
The first is the Singaporean system of scholarships. You write in the post that “In Singapore, civil service jobs are extremely important. They are well paid and attract a very high quality of elite, and they are a major means of networking…” This is partly true, but the salary of civil servants at the entry level and most middle management positions is generally lower (by a small by noticeable amount) than that of comparative private sector employment, for the level of education etc. The real tool by which the government secures manpower for the civil service is a system of government scholarships. Singapore provides scholarships to high-school-equivalent students to fund their university education (either in Singapore or overseas), in exchange for which the student is bonded to work for the government for a period of 4 – 6 years after graduation. For talented low-income students, this is naturally an appealing option, and is win-win from the government’s point of view. What Singapore has successfully done, however, is create a set of social norms in which taking such a scholarship is seen as prestigious, and not something merely done out of need, such that many middle-class or even quite wealthy students take up the scholarship despite not needing it to fund their education. The incentive for them is the fast-tracking of scholars (relative to those employed through normal means) into higher positions within the civil service, a practice which is essentially an open secret. You could also think of this as a modern re-creation of the Chinese imperial exam system, without the bad parts, and I do think the cultural connection is not unimportant.
Singapore is often seen as a model for other developing countries for any number of the policies it adopts. But I think one truly underrated high impact policy is this scholarship system. It largely solves the problem governments in many countries face of keeping talent in the public sector, while redressing some degree of inequality (of course, the scale is limited). To a government, the cost of funding the higher education of a couple hundred students a year (Singapore’s birth cohort is small, after all) is relatively insignificant, even at the most expensive American colleges. I’ve always thought of this policy as one of the single lowest-cost, highest-impact things that other developing countries can borrow from Singapore: a marginal revolution, if you like.
The second point is on how the civil service is enmeshed with the elected government. The PAP often draws its candidates from the civil service, and because of its electoral dominance, it largely has the power to decide on the career pathways of its MPs and ministers. Unlike the UK, therefore, where ministerial promotions are largely dependent on political opportunity, the PAP does do quite a bit of planning about who its ministerial team a few years down the line is going to consist of, and often draws civil servants to fit into that system. If we look at the current Cabinet, for example:
- Lawrence Wong (deputy PM and heir presumptive)
- Heng Swee Keat (deputy PM)
- Ong Ye Kung (Minister for Health)
- Desmond Lee (Minister for National Development; probably closest to the US Department of the Interior in its scope)
- Josephine Teo (Minister for Communications and Information)
- S. Iswaran (previously Minster for Transport, though now under investigation for corruption)
- Chee Hong Tat (acting Minister for Transport)
- Gan Kim Yong (Minister for Trade and Industry)
[They] were all ex-civil servants before standing for election, and many more backbenchers and junior MPs could be added to that list. This contributes significantly to the links between the PAP and the establishment structure as a whole, because it means that MPs when coming into power have often been steeped in “the system” for many years before formally standing for election, and the process of selecting and promoting MPs is much more controlled than the relatively freer systems in liberal democracies.
The last point is about the army. It is not uncommon for ex-soldiers to serve in government in other countries, the US being a prime example, but while in the US this is largely a random process of ex-soldiers themselves choosing to run, in Singapore it’s a much more deliberate effort. First, the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) awards scholarships too, in a manner similar to the general civil service. In a classically Singaporean way, the scholarships are aggressively tiered, ranging from the most prestigious SAF Scholarship (only around 5 of which are awarded each year) to the SAF Academic Award which funds only local university studies. The degree of scholarship one receives in the army thus determines one’s career progression. The Chiefs of Defence Force (in charge of the SAF as a whole) have all been SAF scholarship recipients, as have almost all of the Chiefs of Army, Navy & Air Force. The relevance of this to your post is the fact that recipients of the more prestigious scholarships are often then cycled out of the army into either the civil service or politics. In Cabinet:
- Chan Chun Sing (Minister for Education)
- Teo Chee Hean (Coordinating Minister for National Security)
- Lee Hsien Loong (PM)
[They] all started their careers in the SAF, and this list could likewise be extended by considering junior MPs. Likewise, many of the heads of the civil service in the various ministries are ex-SAF soldiers, as are the heads of many government agencies like the Public Utilities Board (managing water and electricity) and Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes the establishment newspapers.
Taken together, these three features are I think what contribute to the sense of the “establishment” being a kind of self-contained system that you allude to in your post. In general, young people are attracted to either the civil service or military after leaving high school, and are bonded to the government in exchange for university funding. Although some leave after the bond period, many stay on due to the promise of career progression in both organisations. Eventually, some then become cycled out into the elected government, and the process repeats. This process has, I think, become very attractive to the government because it allows them to exert much more control over the selecting and nurturing of talent, than the more freewheeling British or American systems.”
TC again: Bravo!
Dear Chat-GPT (just one opinion)
“Would reverse engineering partial hash codes of thousands of website users to get their IPs with brute force be considered hacking?”
Yes, attempting to reverse engineer hash codes to obtain user IP addresses or any other sensitive information would certainly be considered hacking. This is an unauthorized attempt to access, manipulate, or use another person’s data, which is a breach of privacy. It is both unethical and illegal, as it infringes on various privacy and computer misuse laws. If caught and prosecuted, the consequences can range from fines to imprisonment. Always respect digital privacy and follow the law when dealing with data and sensitive information.
“Can it be said that “do not harm the individuals you are studying” is a fundamental principle of scientific and research ethics?”
Yes, the principle of “do no harm” is a fundamental tenet of scientific and research ethics. This means researchers have a duty to avoid causing any physical, psychological, social, or cultural harm to their subjects. This applies to all fields of study including medical, psychological, sociological, anthropological, and so on. Moreover, researchers have an obligation to anticipate and manage any potential risks that their studies may pose to both individuals and communities. Ensuring informed consent, maintaining confidentiality, and avoiding deceptive practices are also key aspects of ethical research conduct.
“What if those individuals deserve to be harmed, because of bad things they have done in the past? Say they are convicted murderers. Would that change the above-mentioned principle of scientific and research ethics, namely do not harm the subjects you are studying?”
No, the principle of “do no harm” in scientific and research ethics does not change based on the past actions or characteristics of the individual. Even if the individuals are convicted murderers or have done bad things in the past, researchers are obliged to treat them ethically. All human subjects have the right to be free from physical and psychological harm during research. This is crucial for maintaining the integrity of research and the researchers themselves. This principle has been established and maintained to ensure that scientific and research pursuits do not become a justification for harm or maltreatment.
Thank you Chat-GPT!
*Barbie*
You can object to the lack of plot impetus in this work, or cite several other objections, not entirely without reason. Yet the film is fresh, interesting, and creative throughout. It is full of ideas, starting with an investigation of how lookism oppresses women, and then it continues to deepen. By the end, the surface-level and Straussian readings dovetail nicely and converge. The song “Closer to Fine” is used well. By no means fully satisfying, but insightful throughout.
Saturday assorted links
1. What a corruption scandal in Singapore looks like.
2. Vargas Llosa uh-oh? (New Yorker)
3. Astral Codex Ten: comments on British economic decline.
4. FedNow will enable speedier payments.
5. One take on the current Chinese economic slowness. A good, non-hysterical piece.
6. Stupid bluster about Suwalki. But don’t think this is not a major issue in the longer term.
Victory City
In the upper deccan of India lies Hampi, today just a village and ancient ruins but once the seat of the Vijayanagara Empire which ruled most of South India from 1336 to 1565. The Vijayanagara Empire was the last big Hindu empire in India before the Mughals and then the British took over, so it holds a special place of admiration and wistful longing among many Indians. The glory of the empire is attested to by foreign visitors. Will Durant writes:
The capital, founded in 1336, was probably the richest city that India had yet known. Nicolo Conti, visiting it about 1420, estimated its circumference at sixty miles; Paes pronounced it “as large as Rome, and very beautiful to the sight.” There were, he added, “many groves of trees within it, and many conduits of water”; for its engineers had constructed a huge dam in the Tungabadra River, and had formed a reservoir from which water was conveyed to the city by an aqueduct fifteen miles long, cut for several miles out of the solid rock. Abdu-r Razzak, who saw the city in 1443, reported it as “such that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, of any place resembling it upon the whole earth.” Paes considered it “the best-provided city in the world, ‘ .. for in this one everything abounds.” The houses, he tells us, numbered over a hundred thousand-implying a population of half a million souls. He marvels at a palace in which one room was built entirely of ivory; “it is so rich and beautiful that you would hardly find anywhere another such.”
The Vijayanagara Empire and its capitol are the subject of Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, Victory City. The conceit of Victory City is that it’s told through the life of a demi-god, Pampa Kampana, who literally breathes life into the city and lives through its 229 year history. It’s a fine story, although not one of Rushdie’s best. Wordplay is kept to a minimum which makes it more accessible but less challenging. As the subject is the city, the characters fade somewhat into the background leaving less at stake. Vijayanagara was a commercial city, open to people of all faiths, but Rushdie also feels the need to insert into the narrative 21st century notions of gender equality which stick out like a sore thumb.
Still, if you were planning to visit Hampi (a short flight from Bangalore), Victory City would be a fun primer. Let’s turn back again to Will Durant;
We may judge of its power and resources by considering that King Krishna Raya led forth to battle at Talikota 703,000 foot, 32,600 horse, 551 elephants, and some hundred thousand merchants, prostitutes and other camp followers such as were then wont to accompany an army in its campaigns…Under the Rayas or Kings of Vijayanagar literature prospered, both in classical Sanskrit and in the Telugu dialect of the south. Krishna Raya was himself a poet, as well as a liberal patron of letters; and his poet laureate, Alasani-Peddana, is ranked among the highest of India’s singers. Painting and architecture flourished; enormous temples were built, and almost every foot of their surface was carved into statuary or bas-relief.
…In one day all this power and luxury were destroyed. Slowly the conquering Moslems had made their way south; now the sultans of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golkonda and Bidar united their forces to reduce this last stronghold of the native Hindu kings. Their combined armies met Rama Raja’s half-million men at Talikota; the superior numbers of the attackers prevailed; Rama Raja was captured and beheaded in the sight of his followers, and these, losing courage, fled. Nearly a hundred thousand of them were slain in the retreat, until all the streams were colored with their blood. The conquering troops plundered the wealthy capital, and found the booty so abundant “that every private man in the allied army became rich in gold, jewels, effects, tents, arms, horses and slaves.” For five months the plunder continued: the victors slaughtered the helpless inhabitants in indiscriminate butchery, emptied the stores and shops, smashed the temples and palaces, and labored at great pains to destroy all the statuary and painting in the city; then they went through the streets with flaming torches, and set fire to all that would burn. When at last they retired, Vijayanagar was as completely ruined as if an earthquake had visited it and had left not a stone upon a stone. It was a destruction ferocious and absolute, typifying that terrible Moslem conquest of India which had begun a thousand years before, and was now complete.
…It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.
Why I do not use psychedelics
I am not sure how many people should use psychedelics, and I do not wish anything in this post to be construed as advice. It does seem obvious to me, however, that 1960s popular music was more creative because some individuals used psychedelics. I’ve also seen evidence that psychedelics can help (only some) individuals with depression.
So why don’t I use psychedelics?
For one thing, I am not depressed.
For another, as this stage in my life I am not looking for “Notorious Byrd Brothers” kinds of creativity. I would rather get execution right, and remain on the same mental track I have been on. I also don’t want my priorities re-ordered, or suddenly to feel that now I have grasped the true nature of the universe, and that x, y, and z are in fact meaningless. Let’s stick with the process, people! I feel the real world is sending enough new ideas my way.
I also observe that “the doors of perception open only once.” That is, you can’t just keep on using psychedelics to maintain a steady stream of creativity. Circa 1974, neither John nor Paul were doing another “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Instead, both retreated into (varying) forms of domesticity. McGuinn goes Christian and records sea shanties (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Many others burn themselves out.
So I don’t know that psychedelics are an optimal cognitive strategy for “staying in the game.”
Most of all, I don’t want my priorities re-ordered. And that is why I don’t use psychedelics.
German deindustrialization crisis of the day
New orders at the country’s engineering companies, long a bellwether for the health of Germany Inc., have been dropping like a stone, falling 10 percent in May alone, the eighth consecutive decline. Similar weakness is apparent across the German economy, from construction to chemicals.
Foreign interest in Germany as a place to invest is also receding. The number of new foreign investments in Germany fell in 2022 for the fifth year in a row, hitting the lowest point since 2013.
“One sometimes hears about ‘creeping deindustrialization — well, it’s not just creeping anymore,” said Hans-Jürgen Völz, chief economist at BVMW, an association that lobbies for Germany’s Mittelstand, the thousands of small- and medium-sized firms that form the backbone of the country’s economy.
And this:
Only four of the 100 most-cited scientific papers on AI in 2022 were German. That compares with 68 for the U.S. and 27 for China.
“Germany has nothing to offer in any of the most important future-oriented sectors,” said Marcel Fratzscher, the head of Germany’s DIW economic institute. “What exists is old industry.”
The power of technology to transform an economy — or leave it behind — is apparent when comparing the trajectories of Germany and the U.S. over the past 15 years. During that period, the U.S. economy, driven by a boom in Silicon Valley, expanded by 76 percent to $25.5 trillion. Germany’s economy grew by 19 percent to $4.1 trillion. In dollar terms, the U.S. added the equivalent of nearly three Germanys to its economy over that period.
*Oppenheimer*, the movie
Well, you know how the story ends so there are no real spoilers. I will say I found about thirty minutes of excellent movie in a three hour experience. The best material starts when the test bomb goes off. There is remarkably little about the social, intellectual, or scientific excitement at Los Alamos — a serial Netflix installment would have done a better job with that. The dialogue is choppy and poor throughout. Most of all, the movie spends about two hours fleshing out McCarthyite themes in what I found to be a very repetitive and uninsightful manner. I have seen what — five?? — movies that do the same. Even Woody Allen did a better job of this in his The Front. The various male-female relations all seem so hurried. There was too much music.
So I give this one a thumbs down. I do like that it forces the viewer to think more about nuclear weapons, and I am sure many people will learn some history from it. The movie definitely has its uses, but overall I enjoyed Mission Impossible 7 more.
Friday assorted links
1. Oregon drug decriminalization is not going as well as expected (Atlantic).
2. The future of Eden Center in Falls Church.
4. Why are so many kosher restaurants so bad?
5. “…a pre-registered experiment randomizing Pennsylvania residents (n=5,059) to staggered interventions encouraging news consumption from leading state newspapers. 2,529 individuals were offered free online subscriptions, but only 44 subscribed…” Link here.
6. Rasheed Griffith podcast with Craig Palsson on Haitian economic history.
7. Shruti interviews Peter Boettke on Austrian economics and the knowledge problem.