Conrad Whitaker

Aspiring fallibilist

[Judea Pearl @yudapearl]

I am delighted to learn about the creation of the "Conjecture Institute" https://t.co/Nj91ntfH5d
whose mission is to fund fundamental research across many domains, including physics, epistemology and AGI.
A detailed description of their mission can be found in this interview with @DavidDeutschOxf,
https://t.co/LJ9HwnyLtx,
who is also a scientific advisor to the Institute.
To learn more about the Conjecture Institute and its activities, I've followed their X-account on https://t.co/PgMRbP1sm0.
I encourage you to follow them if, like me, you have interest in improving our understanding of concepts such as "culture" "world view"
"evidence for", "knowledge" and, of course, "understanding".
@DavidKennedyNYC

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Goodbye Nova.
Goodbye Tiny Desk
Goodbye PBS NewsHour.
Goodbye Frontline, Masterpiece, Sesame Street, Austin City Limits, Antique Roadshow, Amanpour…

Trump and the GOP just pulled the plug on every last shred of public media that wasn’t corporate-owned or propaganda-approved.

[Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) @adamscochran]

24/24

So in short:

-Trump has no exceptional lineage in Scotland
-Doesn’t own a castle
-Only bought that golf course in 2014
-Cannot call himself a lord
-Is not descended from some great lineage
-The lineage he claims he was part of an off shot of
-The lineage wouldn’t pass through his mother, who grew up in a poor fisherman family
-the clan he claims to be a part of is more heavily Norse than many other clans
-the clan he claims to be a part of was literally started by someone called “Ugly”

(Hey I’ve got no bad blood against the MacLeod’s but look the fact Leòd was an uggo is going to drive Trump wild!)

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

.@SpeakerJohnson, why are you running cover for an underage sex trafficking ring and pretending this is a partisan issue? MAGA voted for this.

[Alexander Berger @albrgr]

🚨Open Phil is hiring for some awesome roles to build out our >$120m Abundance and Growth Fund 🚨

Apply for a chance to work with @mattsclancy on accelerating scientific & technological progress and boosting economic growth
https://t.co/d9oSfoHvkG

[Alexis Rivas @alexisxrivas]

California should be the most agriculturally productive place on earth.

We can make energy abundant and desalinate the ocean. Desal tech has advanced considerably, as has solar and nuclear.

And the brine can be a feedstock for lithium, magnesium, and other critical minerals.

California can pivot from rationing to exporting water-intensive specialty crops, all while decarbonising power and creating a new high-tech manufacturing and agriculture sector on the coast.

The bottleneck is not physics – it’s regulatory and execution. We should be letting gigascale solar, batteries and SMRs iterate the way silicon did in the 80s and 90s.

Water shortage solved, Central Valley super-charged, new export economy unlocked. Thats the playbook.

[M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray]

You've probably been hearing a lot about budget bills, environmental reviews, and labor fights out here on the West Coast. It's all adding up to probably the biggest policy change in modern California history. Here's a breakdown for the perplexed.

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

“The best support we can give to help people find good jobs is to build more housing near the strongest labour markets, making mobility easier and cheaper.” https://t.co/rhAMKkUYNP

[Conrad Whitaker @ConradWhitaker]

@midwitsteven Who’s the substacker?

[Kristina Schröder @schroeder_k]

Deutschland wird es schon auch noch kapieren, früher oder später. Damit es früher wird: Anschaltkonferenz zum Wiedereinstieg in die #Kernenergie nächste Woche in Berlin! @KernkraftAN https://t.co/lVkJ3QNThb

[anson @ansonyuu]

so awesome to be part of an effort where ppl can productively disagree + care about the details

a joint effort by @IFP @JoinFAI @newindustrials @AmerCompass !! out now!!!

[isabelle 🪐 @isabelleboemeke]

For coal to be safer than nuclear, you’d need something like 200 Chernobyls happening… every year.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Ukraine is just so militarily badass. In a better timeline, the American Right would love them for standing up to the barbarian hordes.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

And finally, we have 8 proposals on national security:

1. @Vernon3Austin and @_brianpotter on naval shipbuilding

2. Arun Seraphin on defense procurement

3. @charlesxjyang on critical minerals

4. @JeremyLNeufeld on recruiting top scientists

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

9. Ryan Kelly on the manufacturing extension partnership

10. @ArnabDatta321 and @IrvingSwisher on the strategic petroleum reserve

11. @Chris_Griz on the techno-industrial workforce

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

5. Bill Bonvillian, Michael Szczupak, and David Adler on the advanced manufacturing institutes

6. @oren_cass on taxation for techno-industrialization

7. @ThomasHochman on redesigning NEPA

8. @nukebarbarian on using the LPO for nuclear

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

5. @fiiiiiist on special compute zones

6. Brady Helwig and @arrian_ebrahimi on the national semiconductor technology center

7. @stuartbuck1 experimenting with NIH funding

8. @JacobSwett and Aman Patel on bio threats

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

We have 8 proposals on frontier science & technology:

1. @calebwatney on launching x-labs for science

2. @timhwang and @JoshuaTLevine on foreign data flows for AI

3. @sophiabrownh and @r_zwetsloot on reforming federal hiring

4. @LarsESchonander on reforming the SBIR program

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

🚨 THE TECHNO-INDUSTRIAL POLICY PLAYBOOK

Is the United States still the world’s leading techno-industrial power?

The answer is no longer obvious — and that should worry us.

To restore our lead, we need to act.

A new joint project from @IFP @JoinFAI @AmerCompass and @newindustrials offers 27 actionable policy proposals to rebuild American industry.

Check it out at https://t.co/IIAd7eiCNC

Our organizations don’t agree on everything (e.g., tariffs), but we do agree there are immediate steps we can take to boost industrialization & innovation.

We shouldn’t imitate Beijing’s playbook — America succeeds by leveraging our own advantages.

US innovation does not rely on top-down economic mandates, forced tech transfers, or intellectual property theft.

What we do need is the same level of seriousness that China brings to its techno-industrial agenda.

A serious country wouldn't allow red tape to delay critical investments worth hundreds of billions.

A serious country wouldn’t educate the world's brightest minds only to send them away.

A serious country wouldn't cut core investments in science — but would instead target them toward high-risk, high-reward opportunities.

We can make different choices.

We can revitalize our industrial base, scale up our scientific capabilities, and build a military to deter emerging threats.

Here are the 27 proposals to make it happen… 🧵

[Casey Handmer @CJHandmer]

Lord give me strength.