Decibel #12

Here’s some things from around the internet I consumed this week and found interesting:

1. New US Nuclear Plant Reaches Fuel Loading (short press release)
2. Pigeon AI (2 tweets)
3. Why Balsa Research is Worthwhile (med. length article)

Below, find some of my thoughts.

1. New US Nuclear Plant Reaches Fuel Loading

I’m a fairly large fan of nuclear energy and am quite happy to see some semblance of development for the US in this space. I’m less thrilled that it took 16 years from applying for an early site permit until now.

2. Pigeon AI

It turns out that animals are pretty smart and can be trained to do impressive things. Even “simple” animals have complex pattern matching brains. I’m not surprised to see more work along the lines of “pigeons can do what your machine learning computers can do”. I also enjoy this paper as a reminder to step back for a moment to ponder. I think off-the-wall stuff like this encourages people in the field to think creatively.

Also pigeon.ai is for sale. I think that would be a hilarious company.

3. Why Balsa Research is Worthwhile

I respect a lot of Zvi’s thoughts; from Magic: the Gathering strategies to COVID developments, to rationality, to workplace dynamics I think Zvi has written a fairly high number of personally useful essays and articles.

When he announced he was working on a new project to improve federal policy and lay groundwork to implement those improvements, I was intrigued. Excitement over federal policy is not my norm.

I’ve usually have a someone laid back approach to politics. Often looking at things and seeing that they’re done poorly, but also not wanting to myself be the one trying to fix them. I admit a large amount of privilege here. Yet it also just does not interest me. I feel about politics the same way I do about the Kardashians. I just don’t care about the games the play. They don’t seem worth my time, effort, attention, or stress.

So when Zvi said he wanted to try to tackle a sort of political action, I kept reading.

It appears that, in general, Zvi and I seem to have a similar view of the political landscape — that people on both sides are mostly not that competent at getting effective policy implemented and instead spend time playing games and building status.

He proposes a new project that would use philanthropic funding (or at least it seems it’s mostly philanthropic) to do the following:

1. Model the world. Find improvements that balance viability with physical impact.
2. Compile options into Official Policy Binder and Official Solutions Website.
3. Commission proper academic work to credibly quantify impacts on all fronts.
4. Use this as an opportunity to run experiments and learn more.
5. Draft model legislation.
6. Spread the world via media and writing.
7. Lobby. Pitch members of Congress and their staff. Do the work. Find champions.
8. Back this up with the ability to support campaigns to help gather support.
9. Start small if necessary. Wins beget wins.
10. Profit.

I know nothing about this space, but at first glance it seems like a solid strategy. I enjoy the emphasis on empirical impacts and on the social viability of the changes that might be required. I also think it’s cool to kickstart the work of drafting the legislation and media. Proposing changes by asking others to do most of the work doesn’t go well in my experience in any part of life.

It also seems smart to cut off some of the bad incentives in politics from funding loops through self-funded means, though I’m curious how long that would last if the Balsa Research venture scaled up or encountered a project needing Serious money.

I’m interested in tracking how this goes. I wish Zvi and his partners the best. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be finding some model of the world to send their way.