Economics, Society

Germany

What is the future of German engineering in a world moving away from internal combustion engines? I can’t answer that. But I do argue that the changing industrial landscape is no reason to wind back labour protections, or any of the other achievements of German democracy.

Economics

Competition

Progressive politics hates globalisation. Competition is just a race to the bottom. But if democracy is incompatible with internationalism, what hope do we have for democracy? Here is my attempt to demonstrate that there is no contradiction there. The game is a myth.

Technology

Backups

All Linux backup software is terrible. There is also a great deal of terrible advice on the Internet. Here I exhaustively report what backup software should achieve, what features it needs, and exactly how every piece of Linux software I know fails to satisfy those points.

Society, Technology

Identity

I’m opposed to social media bans for under-16s. But I’m finding it hard to express why, in a debate filled with toxic opinions. Instead, I want to describe the kind of practical solutions to social media harms I’d like to see.

Economics, Technology

Inflation

Two questions about how LLMs affect macroeconomics, in particular inflation. I think we’d all like to know what happens next. I’ve read quite a lot of commentary from economists, but not to the point that I have answers.

Technology

New Phone

My initial thoughts after using the FLX1s Linux phone from FuriLabs for a couple of days. The conclusion so far is that this needs work before it can replace my iPhone, mostly from my side. It’s disappointing on a few dimensions, but so far I haven’t seen anything that can’t be fixed or worked around.

Politics, Society

Believe

The word “believe” does not mean what you probably believe it means, at least not to everyone. I argue that untangling different meanings of this word can help avoid some confusion. Probably can’t help avoid conflict, but hey, I can’t fix everything.

Technology

Scam

A shaggy dog story about how carefully Air France’s emails are contrived to perfectly resemble a scam.

Technology

Generation

The question was raised, are generation ships ethical? The first answer is, that’s a silly question. So is the second answer. But the third answer may surprise you.

Society

Debate

I tried out a research project that uses LLMs to persuade conspiracy theorists that their theories are unlikely. This was my longest yet interaction with an LLM, and it was somewhat instructive. But mostly this reminds me why online debate is a waste of time.