How energy and growth are connected, while the digital economy and growth are not
UNTIL RECENTLY, my mental model of economic growth was 1) the convenience of electricity coming into the home drove growth during the first half of the 20th century, then 2) there were wars and manufacturing for a few decades, which was good for growth, then 3) things slowed down a bit in the 1970s and 80s, but then 4) computers came along and the digital revolution picked up the pace of innovation and 5) the Internet accelerated it.
I was wrong.
That’s not what happened. What happened was electricity.
The Rise and Fall of American Growth
I learned a lot reading Robert Gordon’s book The Rise and…
Last month, I didn’t publish any links because I was busy writing Ninety Nine Percent of All Conversations on Climate are Wrong, which I hope you will read and share. This month, more content for critical thinkers …
The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science, by Roger Pielke, Jr. — an important paper showing how many “important papers” are based on silliness.
Vitalik Buterin on neutrality.
Yes, deep fakes are good, but some people are creating software that detects them:
Cool: Building a digital version of a city helps it become more resilient.
This is from Inreality.show:
How I changed my mind about climate change. Again.
M y name is David Siegel. I am concerned about the environment and the human enterprise. I wrote my first book on climate change in 1991. In 2015, I looked closer into the data and the messaging, and I changed my mind. I became a skeptic of catastrophic climate change and an advocate for science. Since then, I have written many essays and produced a one-hour movie showing the data. I continue to study climate about 20 hours a week, reading both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed material (because of the biases of publication). …
Don’t forget, I have a new climate blog and update it several times a day. Please pass the URL to people you know or to your followers: www.climatecurious.blog.
Tony Hsieh. I met him at TED India. He shouldn’t have died, but things were not right. He was suffering. A sad story is unfolding.
This would be funny if it weren’t so freakin’ true and disastrous for US energy: Pentagon Cornerstone commits U.S. rare earth policy and funding to a twice bankrupt mining project with a Chinese part owner.
What is engineered architecture, and why did Google X steal it?
…
Who would want to work at a company so out of touch with reality?
Imagine …
A Zoom meeting with Andy Tryba, CEO of Crossover for Work ...
Andy: “Okay people, we need to hire some new talent for a big client. I’m going to need someone who can get at least 40 questions right on a 50-question multiple-choice test in 15 minutes. Probably have to guess some of the answers because of the time constraint. Do we have someone who can do that?”
Right Hand Man: “Absolutely. Rob has all the test-prep files. I’ll ask him to start memorizing.”
Andy: “Great. Now I need someone who got good grades in school and can write 50…
This is the first in a series of short pieces for Family Office Insights. If you are part of a family office that hasn’t joined, I hope you will subscribe to their newsletter.
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
— Mark Twain
My name is David Siegel. I’m a lifetime serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, New York, and Europe. I’ve started more than a dozen companies, written five books, given hundreds of speeches about technology and business, and among other things I was a candidate to be the dean of Stanford business school. I am research…
Insights and quick videos to stretch your brain cells
A look at the communities that extract the rare-earth metals we all have in our pockets.
I started a new blog on climate change.
Have you seen The Social Dilemma? Here’s the trailer:
Listen to Edward Snowden explain how your phone is always spying on you:
This is what I’m doing about it:
I’m raising money now. Do you know any philanthropists for me to talk to? Come learn more at my new web site for the Giordano Bruno Institute.
What is an MRNA vaccine? Learn in 8 minutes:
Apple glasses:
By David Siegel
This page is out of date. The blog is now at:
www.shortfall.blog
No need to scroll, just click the link above.
NOTE: For 2021, I have switched to substack, where I am busy getting everything ready. Feel free to explore there and here. This URL will redirect when it’s ready: www.climatecurious.blog.
2020
The human mind is a miracle, and you will never see it spring more beautifully into action than when it is fighting against evidence that it needs to change.
— David Wong
December
Nuclear News
Three nuclear projects are now well funded and hiring:
False Alarm
I study CO2 all day long, and I believe the impact of manmade CO2 this century might be measurable with very sensitive instruments, but it won’t be anything people will notice. By 2100, we’ll…
Does the earth modify its surface in response to warming?
by Willis Eschenbach
[TLDR: In this essay, reprinted by permission from WattsUpWithThat, Willis Eschenbach shows that the earth’s reaction to an increase in solar energy is non-linear. As sea-surface temperatures heat up, they come to a critical temperature that launches storms, cooling the surface. This natural thermostat is missing in almost all climate models.]
I ponder curious things. I got to thinking about available solar energy. That’s the amount of solar energy that remains after reflection losses.
Just under a third (~ 30%) of the incoming sunshine is reflected back into space by a combination of the clouds, the aerosols…
It’s time to rethink the way we run our society, our government, and our planet
Friends, tomorrow Americans will roll a big 5-sided die that has Biden on 4 sides and Trump on one side. Though it’s more likely to come up Biden, since we only roll it once, it could also come up Trump. No matter what happens …
1. The person who voted for the candidate you didn’t is not less of a person, or less caring, or more stupid. Both candidates have weaknesses, and the system is poorly designed. The entire concept of representative government will probably be replaced by something else. In an imperfect system, you get imperfect candidates. …
David Siegel
Provocateur, professional heretic, slayer of myths, speaker of truthiness to powerfulness, and defender of the Oxford comma.
