The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used to have a tradition of building cities.
Under the leadership of Joseph Smith, we built the cities of Kirtland, Far West, and Nauvoo. Brigham Young oversaw the building of almost 300 cities across the Intermountain West. City building slowed dramatically after his death. We haven’t built any new cities in the last hundred years.
Why?
The comments on my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest were highly productive. These are some other interesting comments that did not fit into the previous two categories.
In the comments on my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest, several people asked me about what I thought about several high-profile critics of fusion. This is a summary of my responses.
In the comments on my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest, several people asked me about what I thought about other fusion startups. This is a summary of my responses.
This is my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest, where it tied for third place.
Fusion is the power which lights the stars. It is the source of almost all elements heavier than hydrogen in the universe. Wouldn’t it be great if we could use and control this power here on Earth?
I predict that we will get fusion before 2035 (80%) or 2040 (90%). I am a professional plasma physicist, a fusioneer if you will, so I probably know more about this subject than you, but am likely to overemphasize its importance.
The Future of Fusion Energy is the best introduction to fusion that I know. I can confirm that the information it contains is common knowledge among plasma physicists. My parents, who are not physicists, can confirm that it is accessible and interesting to read.
Things are changing fast in fusion right now, and The Future of Fusion Energy is already out of date in some important ways. I will summarize our quest for fusion as it is portrayed in the book, describe what has happened in the field since 2018, and make some predictions about where we go from here. The predictions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Parisi or Ball.
This is a submission to the Effective Altruism Criticism Contest, originally posted on the Effective Altruism forum.
Key Ideas:
– Paradigmatic criticism leads to value drift.
– The virtues for individuals, organizations, and societies are not exactly the same.
– Even if you want to have value drift for individuals and for society, you might not want to have value drift for organizations.
– A society with narrowly focused & mostly inflexible organizations, and a culture of individuals moving between them as their values shift, could be better than a society with organizations continually looking for paradigmatic criticism.
– Effective Altruism will probably never be scientific in Kuhn’s sense – and it shouldn’t try to be. It should instead try to be scientific in Lakatos’s sense.
