Russia has invaded Ukraine for a variety of reasons.
- I’m not defending Putin, but he’s not simply an evil man who wants to conquer his neighbors. Years of Western European and, specifically, American foreign policy decisions have made him feel disrespected and backed into a corner. Our lack of a long-term, realist grand strategy for dealing with Russia has done major damage. https://reason.com/2022/02/25/how-the-past-4-american-presidents-helped-escalate-tensions-in-ukraine/
- This open-source intelligence website is keeping track of how many military vehicles Russia and Ukraine are losing in the conflict. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
- This may have been right.
‘But kicking off an invasion of Ukraine in the middle of Xi’s Olympic moment could throw a wrench into such warmth, and risk drawing China into the diplomatic fray. It’s possible Xi asked Putin in their recent call not to invade Ukraine during the Games, according to one diplomat in Beijing who asked not to be identified talking about such scenarios.’
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/war-in-ukraine-is-putin-waiting-for-the-beijing-winter-olympics-to-begin - This was wrong.
‘Russia may stage a large-scale military intervention in the Ukrainian region of Donbass at the end of January, and it could involve around 94,300 troops, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov claimed on Friday.’
https://thepressunited.com/updates/ukraine-says-russia-may-invade-in-january/ - This was also wrong.
‘The [U.S. military] officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said…They expect Kyiv to be taken within 96 hours, and then the leadership of Ukraine to follow in about a week’s time.’
https://www.newsweek.com/us-expects-kyiv-fall-days-ukraine-source-warns-encirclement-1682326 - Here’s a remarkable video of a CNN reporter stumbling across Russian paratroopers who just took over an airport in Ukraine. He approached them because he mistakenly thought they were Ukrainian. The Russians were friendly to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1J6LpkG9zo
The fortunes of war have turned in Ethiopia, and the government is driving the Tigray rebels back into the latter’s territory.
https://apnews.com/article/africa-kenya-ethiopia-addis-ababa-abiy-ahmed-114c113bf52114157abcb0b165ef3a50
Taiwan is finally upgrading its obsolete tank forces by getting rid of its 1950s-vintage M41 light tanks.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44406/taiwan-prepares-to-give-up-its-m41a3-walker-bulldog-tanks-after-more-than-six-decades
Nicaragua has Central America’s most powerful tank force by a large margin. It could even beat up Mexico’s!
https://laststandonzombieisland.com/tag/nicaragua-t-55/
DARPA has created an add-on kit that turns old UH-60 helicopters into unmanned drones.
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2022/safe-reliable-and-uninhabited-first-autonomous-black-hawk-flight.html
This demonstration video shows how poor the world’s first Gauss rifle is. You’re better off with a 120-year-old rifle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAHKS0nVlL4
The “Henry Long Ranger” is probably the most advanced lever-action rifle ever made. However, the big unsolved design flaws were making it easy to clean the barrel and to clean and remove the internal mechanism.
https://youtu.be/wsCO0XV5rwA
Before there was cable TV, there was cable radio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_radio
Facebook just had its first ever drop in daily users. They’re out of new people to add, and teens are gravitating towards newer social media apps like TikTok.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/02/facebook-shares-slump-growth-fourth-quarter
‘Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and capturing and storing the carbon, thereby removing it from the atmosphere. The carbon in the biomass comes from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) which is extracted from the atmosphere by the biomass when it grows. Energy is extracted in useful forms (electricity, heat, biofuels, etc.) as the biomass is utilized through combustion, fermentation, pyrolysis or other conversion methods. Some of the carbon in the biomass is converted to CO2 or biochar which can then be stored by geologic sequestration or land application, respectively, enabling carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and making BECCS a negative emissions technology (NET).’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioenergy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage
Thank God combined cycle power plants were invented, because otherwise, we’d always be hearing about magnetohydrodynamic generators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_generator
“Nucleosynthesis” is a process in which a light element is put inside a fusion reactor and bombarded with protons and neutrons, some of which it captures, converting it into a heavier element. Once we have built commercial fusion reactors, we could use the technique to make heavier elements like gold and uranium, and to ensure that we never ran out of any type of element. Terrestrial nucleosynthesis would also decrease the need for asteroid mining to satisfy Earth’s mineral needs.
https://twitter.com/friedberg/status/1492382218307575809
This very technical article estimates that the first holographic TVs will become commercially available in the 2040s. They will present slightly different images to a viewer’s right and left eyes, fooling their brains into perceiving the displayed images as being 3D. In short, you’ll be able to watch movies in 3D without having to wear the glasses. The first generation of holographic TVs will operate on the principle of “multiview horizontal parallax only” (HPO), meaning 1) several people watching the same TV set from different angles (e.g. – watching from the left, watching straight-on from the center, watching from the right) will perceive its footage as being 3D and 2) the picture will only look 3D if the viewers’ heads are level. If one of them tilted his head 90 degrees, so his ear was flat against his shoulder, the footage would look 2D instead of 3D. Improved holographic displays operating on more advanced principles will emerge in the decades after.
https://www.light-am.com/en/article/doi/10.37188/lam.2021.028
Gawaine Baillie stated of the fusee, “Perhaps no problem in mechanics has ever been solved so simply and so perfectly.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusee_(horology)
‘In North America, gradient is expressed in terms of the number of feet of rise per 100 feet of horizontal distance. Two examples: if a track rises 1 foot over a distance of 100 feet, the gradient is said to be “1 percent;” a rise of 2 and-a-half feet would be a grade of “2.5 percent.”…The effect of grades on train operations is significant. For each percent of ascending grade, there is an additional resistance to constant-speed movement of 20 lbs. per ton of train. This compares with a resistance on level, straight track of about 5 lbs. per ton of train. A given locomotive, then, can haul only half the tonnage up a .25-percent grade that it can on the level. Descending grades carry their own penalties in the form of equipment wear and tear and increased fuel consumption.’
https://www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/grades-and-curves/
There are super-strong concrete mixes called “Macro-Defect-Free” (MDF) cement, but they are rarely used since they’re expensive. If you wanted to make a house to survive the apocalypse, consider walls made of steel-reinforced MDF cement.
https://abc-utc.fiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2018/03/ISU-Brent-macro-defect-free_Final.pdf
There are such things as engines made of ceramics rather than metal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_engine
There is such a thing as “powdered alcohol.” You add it to a beverage to make it alcoholic, like making Kool-Aid.
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/palcohol-controversy
The adoption of widespread tea drinking in England starting around 1700 led to a 12% decline in mortality since more adults were boiling their dirty water before drinking it.
https://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Antman.pdf
An important health benefit of smoking is that it reduces appetite, in turn lowering a smoker’s body weight. From 2002-17, the decline in smoking in the U.S. caused a small increase in the country’s obesity rate.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w29701
For the last 20 years, efforts to create a new Lyme disease vaccine have failed because scientists made a wrong assumption about how an important part of the Lyme bacterium was shaped. Several candidate vaccines failed because they were designed to attach themselves to the wrong shape on the outsides of the bacteria.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/lyme-disease-molecule-revealed
At a meeting between French president Macron and Vladimir Putin, the latter refused to take a COVID-19 test out of fear the Russia would use it to secretly sequence his DNA, and use the information against him. Note my relevant prediction, which I said will come true in the 2030s:
“Trivially cheap gene sequencing and vastly improved knowledge of the human genome will give rise to a “human genome black market,” in which people secretly obtain DNA samples from others, sequence them, and use the data for their own ends. For example, a politician could be blackmailed by an enemy who threatened to publish a list of his genetic defects or the identities of his illegitimate children. Stalkers (of celebrities and ordinary people) would also be interested in obtaining the genetic information of the people they were obsessed with. It is practically impossible to prevent the release of one’s DNA since every discarded cup, bottle, or utensil has a sample.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-kept-macron-distance-snubbing-covid-demands-sources-2022-02-10/
The world record for sequencing a human genome is now 5 hours and 2 minutes.
http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/01/dna-sequencing-technique.html
Jewish law can be interpreted as supporting human genetic engineering.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zdd7sbk/revision/7
Unsurprisingly, humans attach greater value to the lives of “cute-looking” animals than to ugly ones. Aesthetics even override our concern for animals’ likely cognitive levels and ability to experience pleasure and pain. We’re going to have a very hard time explaining our preferences to AIs someday.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animals-and-us/202201/why-people-care-more-about-beautiful-animals-ugly-ones
This article explores why some animals can detect earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and even tornadoes in advance. Once we understand how they do it, we could build sensors that took advantage of the same principles.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220211-the-animals-that-predict-disasters
“Tetrachromats” are people who have four types of photoreceptors in their eyes instead of the usual three, allowing them to see more colors. This article profiles one tetrachromat, and she finds the colors of nature more stimulating than the average person, while color schemes found in many buildings and manmade environments are bracing. I think our descendants will be able to see more colors than we can.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/30/im-really-just-high-on-life-and-beauty-the-woman-who-can-see-100-million-colours
Humans can tell how strong a man is based on the sound of his voice alone. This is true even if the man is speaking a language the listener doesn’t understand.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2010.0769
There are important upsides to global warming.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/how-global-warming-can-be-good/
As a reminder of how unexpected the current real estate price boom is, consider this July 2020 article from The Economist: “Many economists still expect house prices to fall over the whole of 2020—but such forecasts are looking increasingly shaky.”
In other words, as late as mid-2020, there was still no consensus over what direction the U.S. housing market was headed, and even the experts were unaware of how much prices were about to jump. Keep this in mind when reading today’s news articles where those same experts predict what the housing market will do over the next few years. I doubt a big crash in prices is coming, but the possibility can’t be written off.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/07/02/americas-housing-market-is-so-far-unfazed-by-recession
And here’s an article from the August 22, 2020 edition of The Economist wondering why inflation rates are so low.
https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2020/08/22/why-does-low-unemployment-no-longer-lift-inflation
From this month: ‘High prices continue to hit American shoppers as inflation rose faster than expected to 7.5 percent for the month of January over the previous year, exceeding the 40-year high set in December.’
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/inflation-numbers-trend-rising-prices-goods-soar-rcna15692
Consider the years of (highly expensive) training men go through just to become fighter pilots, the need for nearly continuous re-training to prevent them from forgetting skills, and the many hours of preparation and after-action work that they must do for each single hour of flight of actual combat missions. It’s amazing but also colossally inefficient. Once someone figures out how to build autonomous fighter planes that can be mass produced, programmed in a few hours at the factory, and uploaded with mission instructions in a few seconds, it will be the end of human pilots. They will be overwhelmed by machine fighter planes that can do missions around the clock, even if the human fighter pilots are better in 1:1 combat against them.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44099/why-fighter-pilots-work-for-eight-hours-intensely-to-only-fly-for-30-minutes
‘When fed information about a target individual’s mobile phone interactions, as well as their contacts’ interactions, AI can correctly pick the target out of more than 40,000 anonymous mobile phone service subscribers more than half the time…The findings suggest humans socialize in ways that could be used to pick them out of datasets that are supposedly anonymized.’
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-identify-anonymous-data-phone-neural-network
Machines can now beat humans at car racing video games.
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1080976330/ai-video-games-sony-playstation-gran-turismo-autonomous-car
A new algorithm, “AlphaCode,” can write computer programs as well as most human programmers.
https://deepmind.com/blog/article/Competitive-programming-with-AlphaCode
Computer generation of images based on text descriptions has improved.
http://arxiv.org/abs/2112.10741
https://youtu.be/eaSTGOgO-ss
One of Google’s most advanced narrow AIs was tasked with finding a better way to losslessly compress internet videos. It did, but its method was only 4% better than what human computer scientists had created. Across a surprising number of technologies, humans have already achieved optimums or come very close to them.
https://deepmind.com/blog/article/MuZeros-first-step-from-research-into-the-real-world
James Cameron now thinks that Skynet would destroy humanity by circulating deepfake videos on the internet to turn people against each other. “The news cycles happen so fast, and people respond so quickly, you could have a major incident take place between the interval between when the deepfake drops and when it’s exposed as a fake.”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/james-cameron-skynet-would-destroy-humanity-with-deepfakes-not-nukes
For the record, I think a hostile AI would use a variety of weapons and tactics against us in a war, including advanced digital disinformation campaigns. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic shows how effective biological warfare would be against us, so we should expect that, and I also think Skynet would build some robots to kill us “kinetically,” though the vast majority of them wouldn’t look like T-800s.
‘To that end, here is what I expect AI progress will look like if it fits the patterns of past progress.
- Major new methods or capabilities for AI will be demonstrated in systems that are generally pretty poor.
- Under the right conditions, such as a multi-billion-dollar effort by a state actor, the first version of an important new AI capability or method may be sufficiently advanced to be a major global risk or of very large strategic value.
- An early system with poor practical performance is likely to be followed by very rapid progress toward a system that is more valuable or dangerous
- Progress leading up to an important new method or capability in AI is more likely to be accelerating than it is to be stagnant. Notable advances preceding a new capability may not be direct ancestors to it.
- Although high-risk and transformative AI capabilities are likely to emerge in an environment of less uncertainty than today, the feasibility of such capabilities and which methods can produce them are likely to be contentious issues within the AI community right up until those capabilities are demonstrated.‘
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iRhSi5KcnnD9qsAGo/observed-patterns-around-major-technological-advancements
Better narrow AI and better robots could widen the existing wealth gaps between countries and reduce international trade. Rich countries will build robots to do work for them that poor people currently do for them overseas.
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2020/09/11/Will-the-AI-Revolution-Cause-a-Great-Divergence-49734
Most of the world has turned the corner of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, masking rules are being rescinded across the U.S.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/02/25/covid-cdc-indoor-mask-guidelines/6937810001/