Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Bootstrapping The Solar System

17 Comments

A new paper:

Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game-changing for the prospects of space industry. It has become feasible to bootstrap a self-sustaining, self-expanding industry at reasonably low cost. Simple modeling was developed to identify the main parameters of successful bootstrapping. This indicates that bootstrapping can be achieved with as little as 12 metric tons (MT) landed on the Moon during a period of about 20 years. The equipment will be teleoperated and then transitioned to full autonomy so the industry can spread to the asteroid belt and beyond. The strategy begins with a sub-replicating system and evolves it toward full self-sustainability (full closure) via an in situ technology spiral. The industry grows exponentially due to the free real estate, energy, and material resources of space. The mass of industrial assets at the end of bootstrapping will be 156 MT with 60 humanoid robots, or as high as 40,000 MT with as many as 100,000 humanoid robots if faster manufacturing is supported by launching a total of 41 MT to the Moon. Within another few decades with no further investment, it can have millions of times the industrial capacity of the United States. Modeling over wide parameter ranges indicates this is reasonable, but further analysis is needed. This industry promises to revolutionize the human condition.

Looks interesting. I remember talks like this at the Princeton conferences 35 years ago. It’s technology is finally starting to evolve to allow it to happen.

Related: Carlos Entrena Utrilla has started a series of descriptions of the coming cislunar economy.

[Update a few minutes later]

Sorry for missing link on Carlos’s piece, fixed now.

Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Racist Roots Of “Progressivism”

6 Comments

Virginia Postrel:

In the early 20th century, most progressives viewed as cutting-edge science what today looks like simple bigotry. “Eugenics and race science were not pseudosciences in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” Leonard emphasizes. “They were sciences,” supported by research laboratories and scholarly journals and promoted by professors at the country’s most prestigious universities.

While some socialists and conservatives also embraced them, Leonard argues, eugenics and scientific racism fit particularly well with progressive thought: “Eugenics was anti-individualistic; it promised efficiency; it required expertise, and it was founded on the authority of science.” Equally important, “biological ideas,” Leonard writes, gave progressive reformers “a conceptual scheme capable of accommodating the great contradiction at the heart of Progressive Era reform — its view of the poor as victims deserving state uplift and as threats requiring state restraint.” They could feel sorry for impoverished Americans while trying to restrict their influence and limit their numbers.

Know what else is “founded on the authority of science”? The war on the fossil-fuel industry, and the desire to control all aspects of our lives in the name of “saving the planet.”

In addition to restricting immigration, throwing people out of work with a minimum wage, and keeping blacks and other inferiors out of the job market, she could have also pointed out that gun control (another “progressive” idea) was traditionally intended to keep those inferior disarmed.

And nothing has changed. Accusations of “racism” against actual liberals by “progressives” remain, as with accusations of “hate,” and “violence,” and “ignorance,” psychological projection.

[Update a few minutes later]

How to get “progressive” students to understand the minimum wage:

When I get to the words “parasites,” I am aware that my tone of voice and demeanor are showing signs of disgust. They are disgusting sentiments, not easily read aloud to a classroom of students.

I think this is useful pedagogically for several reasons. First, it teaches students in political economy to carefully distinguish positive analysis from normative evaluation. By building this in early in the course, I find it easier to teach more difficult concepts like Coase and externalities. Second, it poses a striking challenge to students’ priors that good intentions lead to good policy. I use the opportunity to emphasize that economists judge policies by their outcomes, not the intentions behind them. Third, the example demonstrates the value of knowing something about the history of ideas and economic thought. It enriches their knowledge of both of the historical and contemporary debates and they remember it (I think). Fourth, the discussion invites a consideration of what values, views, and policies are consistent with their own normative positions. And finally, it is a powerful illustration of how ideas have consequences.

Yes. I wish that more teachers did this. But of course, too many of them are “progressives.”

Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Space, Space History, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The Abandoned Frontier

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Mark Steyn reflects on the passing of John Glenn. I don’t agree entirely, and I think he misses some key points, one of which was that Apollo was a battle in the Cold War that didn’t have much to do with space. With regard to Charlton, anyone who thinks we’re in technological decline, and unable to do great things any more hasn’t been paying attention to what’s been happening in microelectronics, microbiology, and yes, spaceflight. I’d suggest that Mark read my recent essay on the need to get over Apolloism.

[Update a while later]

Henry Vanderbilt weighs in over at Arocket:

Apollo was amazing, yes. But it did things the brute-force, massively-expensive way. Just look at the size of a Saturn 5 ready for liftoff, versus how much came back. Multiply that by the size of the payroll for the hundreds of thousands building and operating it, spread over a handful of missions a year. That’s a lot of expensive aerospace talent and hardware spent on every mission – billions worth.

Of course, they had no choice but to do it that way. They had an urgent national goal, a tight deadline, an effectively unlimited budget – and a 1962 technology base. One example: The computer that flew a Saturn 5 weighed as much as a small car – and was less powerful than the chips we put in toasters.

Two things happened after Apollo, one immediately bad, one eventually good.

The bad thing is that in the seventies, bureaucrats took over, and did what bureaucrats do: They carved into stone doing things the Apollo way. Shuttle resulted: gorgeous, yes, but only somewhat less expendable and slightly less labor-intensive than Saturn 5. And, alas, somewhat more fragile.

For decades this bureaucracy defended their billions-per-mission turf and defeated all efforts to do things less expensively. (In fact it’s still trying, with a MANY-billions-per-mission bastard offspring of Shuttle and Saturn 5 called “Space Launch System”.)

But the other thing that happened is, back in the eighties a few of us saw this bureaucratic logjam forming, and looked into whether space really had to cost billions per mission. We concluded it didn’t. We began pushing the different approaches it’d take to get costs down to where all the useful things we might do in space begin to be affordable.

It took a lot longer than we hoped getting into this. But thirty years later, commercial space companies are doing things at a tenth of traditional NASA costs. And that’s even before the really radical new technologies kick in, like the reusable flyback boosters just entering test in the last couple of years.

I won’t defend the wasted decades. (It wasn’t us wasting them, though at a number of points we could have been less naive about how ruthlessly the bureaucrats would defend their turf.)

But at this point, despair over the wasted decades is obsolete. Costs are coming down fast, huge possibilities are opening up. We could still blow it, yes. But compared to even just five or ten years ago, right now the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.

Henry Vanderbilt
Space Access Society
(founded in 1992 with the intent of being no longer needed and disposed of in five years. yeah well.)

As I said on the Space Show the other week, the future for human spaceflight has never been more exciting.

Business, Economics, Technology and Society

Wi Fi

6 Comments

A new technique that reduces power consumption by five orders of magnitude.

This is the only down side:

Aside from saving battery life on today’s devices, wireless communication that uses almost no power will help enable an “Internet of Things” reality where household devices and wearable sensors can communicate using Wi-Fi without worrying about power.

Just what we need: More devices to become a part of DDOS botnets.

Business, Economics, Health, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Repeal, Delay, Replace

12 Comments

That’s the Republicans’ plan to undo the legislative atrocity that is ObamaCare.

[Update a few minutes later]

Democrats plan a fight to save ObamaCare. I agree with Stephen Green:

If you — or GOP lawmakers — aren’t mentally prepared for the howls, the accusations of racism/sexism/etc, the tales of woe, and the panic-mongering, then you don’t understand how Democrats play this game.

The ugliness hasn’t even begun to begin.

Sadly true.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Draining The DC Swamp

7 Comments

…by moving its denizens out into the real country:

here’s my plan: During the next four years, the Trump Administration — and Congress — should plan to move at least 25% of the federal workforce located in the Washington, D.C. metro area to other locations around the country: Places that are economically suffering (which will have the advantage of making federal workers’ salaries go farther) and that need the business. Should Trump get another four years, he should do it all over again.

What’s interesting is that Vox (of all places) has a similar proposal, from Matt Yglesias:

The poorest places in the United States have been poor for a very long time and lack the basic infrastructure of prosperity. But that’s not true in the Midwest, where cities were thriving two generations ago and where an enormous amount of infrastructure is in place. Midwestern states have acclaimed public university systems, airports that are large enough to serve as major hubs, and cities whose cultural legacies include major league pro sports teams, acclaimed museums, symphonies, theaters, and other amenities of big-city living.

But industrial decline has left these cities overbuilt, with shrunken populations that struggle to support the legacy infrastructure, and the infrastructure’s decline tends to only beget further regional decline.

At the same time, America’s major coastal cities are overcrowded. They suffer from endemic housing scarcity, massive traffic congestion, and a profound small-c political conservatism that prevents them from making the kind of regulatory changes that would allow them to build the new housing and infrastructure they need. Excess population that can’t be absorbed by the coasts tends to bounce to the growth-friendly cities of the Sunbelt that need to build anew what Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland already have in terms of infrastructure and amenities.

A sensible approach would be for the federal government to take the lead in rebalancing America’s allocation of population and resources by taking a good hard look at whether so much federal activity needs to be concentrated in Washington, DC, and its suburbs. Moving agencies out of the DC area to the Midwest would obviously cause some short-term disruptions. But in the long run, relocated agencies’ employees would enjoy cheaper houses, shorter commutes, and a higher standard of living, while Midwestern communities would see their population and tax base stabilized and gain new opportunities for complementary industries to grow.

In this context, it’s worth noting that LBJ treated NASA as a sort of “Marshall Plan” for the south, which persisted in its poverty after the Civil War. Only the Cape is really geographically needed; the other centers could have been elsewhere.

Of course, the down side for this proposal (for DC-area residents) would be a plunge in housing prices.

Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Trump’s Federalist Revival

15 Comments

I hope that Kim Strassel is right:

President Obama never held much with laws, because he failed at making them. After his first two years in office, he never could convince the Congress to pass another signature initiative. His response—and the enduring theme of his presidency—was therefore to ignore Congress and statutes, go around the partnership framework, and give his agencies authority to dictate policy from Washington. The states were demoted from partners to indentured servants. So too were any rival federal agencies that got in the EPA’s way. Example: The EPA’s pre-emptive veto of Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine, in which it usurped Army Corps of Engineers authority.

One revealing illustration from EPA world. Under the Clean Air Act, states are allowed to craft their own implementation plans. If the EPA disapproves of a state plan, it is empowered to impose a federal one—one of the most aggressive actions the agency can take against a state, since it is the equivalent of a seizure of authority. In the entirety of the presidencies of George H.W. Bush,Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the EPA imposed five federal implementation plans on states. By last count, the Obama administration has imposed at least 56.

Much of Mr. Pruitt’s tenure as Oklahoma’s AG was about trying to stuff federal agencies back into their legal boxes. Most of the press either never understood this, or never wanted to. When the media wrote about state lawsuits against ObamaCare or the Clean Power Plan or the Water of the United States rule, the suggestion usually was that this litigation was ideologically motivated, and a naked attempt to do what a Republican Congress could not—tank the president’s agenda.

The basis of nearly every one of these lawsuits was in fact violations of states’ constitutional and statutory rights—and it is why so many of the cases were successful. It was all a valiant attempt to force the federal government to follow the law. And it has been a singular Pruitt pursuit.

It will be refreshing to have someone rein in the EPA by running it, instead of having to continually take it to court.

[Update a while later]

Will Trump finally provide an opportunity to sell “progressives” on the virtues of federalism?

“Turnabout is fair play” is a deeply human sentiment. In politics, it’s both tedious and fun, because while reciprocity is satisfying, hypocrisy is annoying.

For instance, when Republicans take control of the Senate, Democrats instantly become sticklers for procedure, precedent, and constitutionalism. When Republicans lose the Senate, it’s “Democrats, start your steamrollers.”

While “You did it, so now we can too” is a perfectly natural attitude, it encourages cynicism precisely because it renders principles into arguments of convenience. When President Obama was testing — and exceeding — the limits of his constitutional powers, liberals grabbed their pom-poms and cheered. Now that Donald Trump is in power, they’re rediscovering that constitutional safeguards are there for everybody.

When Obama grew the deficit, Republicans and tea partiers insisted there was a debt crisis. Now, the president-elect says we must “prime the pump” with up to $1 trillion in deficit spending, and the former deficit hawks slumber in their nests. Regardless, that excerpt from A Man for All Seasons is not intended to imply that Trump is the devil — or that Obama is. Suffice it to say that one partisan’s devil is another partisan’s angel. I’m more interested in breaking the cycle and seizing an opportunity.

I’m looking forward to it. Who knows, maybe even Trump can be convinced.

[Update a while later]

Trump is putting together the most business-friendly cabinet in decades:

Conservatives had expressed considerable reservations about Trump’s professions of conservatism, during both the primary and general-election campaigns. In the days after the election, Trump’s meetings with Obama on the ACA and with Al Gore on climate change prompted renewed concerns about Trump’s true direction. Even while the first few nominations got announced, some wondered whether they reflected vice-president-elect Mike Pence more than Trump, and when other shoes would begin to drop.

So far, though, Trump seems intent on creating the most conservative and business-oriented Cabinet in decades. If Horowitz was correct and “personnel is policy,” then conservatives should find themselves pleasantly surprised and encouraged thus far with a 180-degree change of direction these key appointments promise. The inauguration on January 20th marks the date in which conservatives might find their own version of hope and change.

Unfortunately, what we really need is a market-friendly one.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Trump’s selections indicate that massive deregulation moves are coming. Well, we need it, after all the unconstitutional and unlawful overreach of the past eight years.

[Update a while later]

Getting back to the original post topic, Trump has nominated a powerful defender of states rights.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

The Future Of Space

18 Comments

As we mourn the loss of a pioneer, it’s important to note that it lies with the billionaires, not NASA or other government programs:

“One [path] is that we stay on Earth forever and then there will be an inevitable extinction event,” [Bezos] told the audience of scientists and engineers. “The alternative is to become a spacefaring civilization, and a multi-planetary species.”

Ashlee Vance, longtime tech journalist and author of Elon Musk: Tesla, Space, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, thinks these ambitions are driven by a mix of entrepreneurial curiosity, altruism and a dash of egotism. “The guys who are rulers of the universe now are the nerds,” he says. “They were all geeks raised on science fiction and the vision of space we had in the 1960s and 70s. Now they have the money to make this a reality.”

Yes.

Business, Economics, Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The “Consensus” On Climate Change

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Scott Adams explains why he accepts it, even though it’s probably wrong:

when it comes to pattern recognition, I see the climate science skeptics within the scientific community as being similar to Shy Trump Supporters. The fact that a majority of scientists agree with climate science either means the evidence is one-sided or the social/economic pressures are high. And as we can plainly see, the cost of disagreeing with climate science is unreasonably high if you are a scientist.

While it is true that a scientist can become famous and make a big difference by bucking conventional wisdom and proving a new theory, anything short of total certainty would make that a suicide mission. And climate science doesn’t provide the option of total certainty.

To put it another way, it would be easy for a physicist to buck the majority by showing that her math worked. Math is math. But if your science depends on human judgement to decide which measurements to include and which ones to “tune,” you don’t have that option. Being a rebel theoretical physicist is relatively easy if your numbers add up. But being a rebel climate scientist is just plain stupid. So don’t expect to see many of the latter. Scientists can often be wrong, but rarely are they stupid.

…I accept the consensus of climate science experts when they say that climate science is real and accurate. But I do that to protect my reputation and my income. I have no way to evaluate the work of scientists.

If you ask me how scared I am of climate changes ruining the planet, I have to say it is near the bottom of my worries. If science is right, and the danger is real, we’ll find ways to scrub the atmosphere as needed. We always find ways to avoid slow-moving dangers. And if the risk of climate change isn’t real, I will say I knew it all along because climate science matches all of the criteria for a mass hallucination by experts.

It does indeed.

[Late-evening update]

The Scott Adams post was via Judith Curry, who has related links from other “heretics” (i.e., they “believe” in AGW, but aren’t hysterical about it) Roger Pielke and Matt Ridley:

The truly astonishing thing about all this is how little climate heretics – such as myself, Roger Pielke, and Matt Ridley – actually diverge from the consensus science position: RP Jr. hews strictly to the IPCC consensus; Matt Ridley is on the lukewarm side of the IPCC consensus, and I have stated that the uncertainties are too large to justify high confidence in the consensus statements.

RP Jr and Matt Ridley provide appalling examples of the personal and arguably unethical attacks from other scientists, journalists, elected politicians and others with government appointments.

Scott Adams provides some genuine (and as always, humorous) insights into the psychology behind the dynamics of the climate debate.

As to the question: to be or not to be a climate heretic?

I’m planning a climate heretic blog post shortly after the first of the year. After seeing RP Jr’s title, perhaps I will title it ‘Happy Heretic’ (stay tuned). Here’s to hoping that the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma and acceptance of a broader range of perspectives on climate science and our policy options .

I’ll personally be looking forward to it.

Business, Economics, Education, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Life Of Julia

2 Comments

Part of the overwhelming feeling of relief after the election was that it offered an opportunity to escape from it, something that I had feared was lost, and would have been under continued Democrat rule:

In a state in which central planners call the shots, we are less and less free to choose. Individual enterprise becomes desperately unrewarding, or even illegal. Freedom fades, and bureaucratic dictates supplant the information and incentives that are part of free markets. Economic growth declines, and people fight over access to the favors of the state elite and their bureaucratic retinue, the overlords who decide who gets what slice of the shrinking vegetarian meatloaf.

That’s the real life of Julia, the direction in which the country has been heading for too many years now, while Obama has scolded Americans that whatever they earn, or achieve, or invent, belongs — cradle-to-grave — to someone else: “You didn’t build that.”

To watch America in recent years spiraling down into the life of Julia has been excruciating. This is a country made great not by conquest, or constraints, or cross-subsidies, but by freedom and free enterprise. Long before the welfare state offered free amenities (courtesy of American taxpayers), it was freedom that drew people to America, and fueled the melting pot — the real form of “inclusivity” — once they arrived. Our true iconic figures — if you plumb the American spirit — are not Julia and Pajama Boy, but sharpshooter Annie Oakley and that out-sized folklore lumberjack of the Western frontier, Paul Bunyan. This is the country that led the way to victory in World War II, and during the Cold War stood — and in some places fought — as a bulwark of freedom.

And here’s what the real Life of Julia would be under government “care.”

And a reminder: if you want to know what “single payer” health care would look like, you need look no further than the VA:

Nearly 600 veterans could have been infected with HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C at a Veterans Affairs facility in Tomah, Wis. because a dentist didn’t properly clean his instruments.

The Tomah VA is investigating the dentist, who has not been fired but was removed from patient care.

No accountability.