The anti-American Right
Bo French’s rightist movement is a dead end for our nation. Fortunately, it’s beatable.
Economics
Noahpinion.
Economics and other interesting stuff.
Recent essays
30 of 79Two missing pieces in the AI safety discussion
We need to make skeptics properly scared. And we need to make CHINA properly scared.
Get the Middle East out of my politics!
A manifesto.
Liberalism needs a new philosophy of immigration
We need to make a principled stand instead of a tactical retreat.
AI keeps stubbornly refusing to take our jobs
Happy Labor Day!! Your labor is still valuable.
America is still beating China in the AI race
The U.S. is staying ahead, though the costs of that lead are still unknown.
Why you won’t get a flying car
A review of “Where is My Flying Car?”, by J. Storrs Hall, and some other thoughts on the future of technology.
Roundup #87: Technology BAD!!
The Hugging Face attack; TV and loneliness; Leftist antisemitism; Another Acemoglu paper; The Electric Revolution
In defense of Asian American art
People are creating some very interesting and original stuff!
Here’s how we’re all going to die
Spoiler: It’s vibe-coded superviruses.
The death of Market Street
How San Francisco turned its most iconic street into a giant empty scar.
What if our biggest problems aren’t economic?
A new social challenge for a new century.
Are we watching the U.S. go bankrupt?
No, but there are still reasons for concern.
Economists should be worried about birth rates
Don’t be so quick to dismiss the threat of an aging, declining population.
Where to eat in San Francisco
Part 1 of my personal recommendations.
The end of an era for China's economy
Zhu Rongji's formula won't work anymore. But that doesn't mean Xi Jinping's will work either.
23 low-regret recommendations for AI policy
A guest post by Tim Fist and Saif Khan, with Tao Burga, Arthur Tellis, Ben Schifman, Jonah Weinbaum, and Olivia Scharfman
Roundup #86: Unintended consequences
The MAGA decline; The labor share decline; OPTs and American jobs; AI and Indian outsourcing; Drug users; AI and productivity; Botswana; Interracial Marriage; AI writing
The poverty of anti-tech thought
Some of my colleagues have been led into an intellectual cul-de-sac.
Should we "pace" AI self-improvement?
A guest post by Tim Fist and Saif Khan.
Banning data centers would blow up the U.S. economy
There's one thing keeping us afloat right now, and people want to get rid of it.
Are the Democrats going to save us this time?
And if not, what do we do?
The end of the age of heroes
AI will soon be better at math than any human. What does that mean?
Slopulism is taking over America
Sometimes bad populist ideas are just a mistake; sometimes they're being promoted for ideological reasons.
Why did South Korean stocks just crash?
The AI boom creates a lot of uncertainty.
Roundup #85: Most policy is also industrial policy
Trump and science; U.S. national debt; Europe and software; America and trains; China and metal refining; Indian women; Murder
What will more intelligence actually do for us?
A lot, actually. But it won't look quite like what humans do with our intelligence.
We asked too much of the American university
Our one remaining functional institution is going downhill.
Who was the worst monster of the 20th century?
And who is the worst monster of the 21st?
The UK is a cautionary tale for the U.S.
Learning from Britain's missteps doesn't mean looking down on them.