What is industrial policy for, anyway?

Also: the desirability of science given risks from tech, notes on differential technology development, and more

Report on the Desirability of Science Given Risks from New Biotech

by Matt Clancy

My preferred policy stance… is to separately and in parallel pursue reforms that accelerate science and reforms that reduce risks from new technologies, without worrying too much about their interaction

What is industrial policy for, anyway?

by Connor O'Brien

One administration after the other was happy to protect U.S. Steel when it was most vulnerable and direct public procurement officers its way even when it cost taxpayers dearly. But this assistance did not come with the condition that the firm learn, upgrade, or innovate. It did little more than subsidize the culture of complacency that ended up being U.S. Steel’s undoing.

Introducing Pathways to Progress

by lmessner

We are excited to announce Pathways to Progress, a 10-week reading group and speaker series exploring Progress Studies! We will be running our second fellowship starting at the beginning of February via Zoom.

Notes on Differential Technological Development

by Chris Leong

Great post by Michael Nielsen that lists a bunch of considerations in relation to Differential Technological Development.

Against the Burden of Knowledge

by Maxwell Tabarrok

The burden of knowledge claims that these trends are inevitable responses to an unavoidable cost of progress. But an explanation based on on institutional decay suggests a solution: metascience.

Today Is the Best Time To Be Born, Despite Climate Change

by Maarten Boudry

Now that we have finally escaped from thousands of years of drudgery and suffering and entered an age of abundance, it would be bizarrely self-indulgent to imagine that *today*, of all times, is the wrong moment to be born.

California Whatever? Scoffing Is Easy, Building Is Harder.

by Ryan Puzycki

Our instinctual rush to criticize is itself symptomatic of our cultural malaise, that feeling of futility or lack of control in the face of seemingly insurmountable problems. California Forever—with its outrageously bold ambitions, its self-assured rejection of fatalism—strikes at the heart of that malaise.

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