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Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
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28 Jun, 13 tweets, 4 min read
1/Americans these days tend to cower in fear of new technology -- automation, modern housing construction, and even vaccines.

This is bad. We're rejecting the future out of fear, and we need to embrace it instead.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
2/This should be a time of techno-optimism, with solar, batteries, vaccines, and more exciting technologies promising to remake our world for the better.

So why are Americans so scared?

noahpinion.substack.com/p/techno-optim…
3/One reason is that we've created a "scarcity mindset" for ourselves. We've artificially limited our supply of housing and other critical goods.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/americas-sca…
4/Another thing is that we've bought into the pernicious myth that Americans are useless workers -- that the best hope for our working class is to tax robots, instead of finding ways for the working class to USE the robots.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
5/Even in art and culture, we aren't as boldly futuristic as we once were.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/losing-sight…
6/Other countries are forging ahead with robots, even as we fall behind.

Are they losing out because of it? Have South Korean workers been rendered obsolete? Or German workers?

NO.
7/Meanwhile, do you really think we can keep up with China without leveraging our strength in technology and automation?

If so, you need to think again!!
8/Just watch a video of a fully automated Chinese port.

9/And now realize how much slower and less efficient American ports are.

wsj.com/articles/behin…
10/In construction, too, we're resisting the use of modern high-tech methods, because of...fear of job loss.

So everyone's house is more expensive. Big L, right there.

sfchronicle.com/bayarea/articl…
11/How can we make Americans more confident about embracing new technologies instead of fearing them?

The first thing is: SECURITY.

With NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE and policies to help people find new jobs quickly, job churn won't be a source of terror!

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
12/The second thing we need is a broader distribution of the wealth that new technology creates!!

Bidenomics can help with that!!

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
13/If we give Americans security that's not connected to their job, and if we distribute the gains from technology more broadly, Americans can recapture their optimism about the future -- and America will grow, advance, and prosper.

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

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More from @Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
28 Jun
1/Today's Substack post is about the idea of Black Regionalism, and the writings of Charles Blow.

I paywalled it because it contains some personal stuff, but here's the general idea.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/charles-blow…
2/Here's an article where Blow explains his basic idea: Black people should move to Southern states in order to amass political power (and to feel more at home):

nytimes.com/2021/01/08/opi…
3/In fact, that has already been happening to a large extent. Black Americans have been moving to the South in fairly substantial numbers over the past couple of decades.

nytimes.com/2017/07/08/opi…
Read 14 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
27 Jun
1/In today's Substack post, I respond to Scott Alexander about Jewish achievement.

In addition to addressing his points, I also add a section asking: "Why might we care about Jewish achievement?"

I could think of 4 reasons...

noahpinion.substack.com/p/a-response-t…
2/Scott says Jewish achievement is a way to prove that not all group disparities come from structural racism.

@sullydish has argued something similar.
3/But I argue: Not only do we not need Jews in order to prove that group disparities can arise from reasons other than structural racism -- Jews aren't even close to the best example!
Read 13 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
26 Jun
I would like to note that whenever I brought up the lab leak idea, I got reamed for supporting "racism". So because I didn't think my opinion on lab leak was important, I just chose to shut up about it.
Note that I don't think that the "lab leak is racist" thing was an example of wokeness or other deep principle. I think it was a fear-based reaction in the middle of a pandemic -- a reflexive attempt to ward away something that felt scary.
Anyway, I'm STILL getting admonished by people along these lines.

Here are some replies to my tweets above.
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
23 Jun
Today on Twitter I saw someone claim that WW2 started because BOTH SIDES insisted on escalating.

I've seen some bananas takes on this website, but somehow it never stops being able to surprise me.
If only the Allies hadn't insisted on escalating after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, right? If only Neville Chamberlain hadn't been such a warmonger...

🤯🤯🤯
You see, the Allies escalated at VERSAILLES, and Germany was just trying to restore balance...

🤯🤯🤯

Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
22 Jun
I think this is correct. Conservative ideas actually have a strong future in America. But if the GOP falls to the temptation to do election-theft or coups, they will give up that advantage.
Coup attempts, especially, will result in utter domination of U.S. institutions by liberals and leftists. The Right will be utterly discredited; institutions like the military will have no choice but to completely embrace the things the Right fears most.
In fact you can already see this happening, with the "woke" military ads and the attempts to root out white supremacists following the 1/6 coup attempt -- which the military knows was a coup attempt no matter how many times rightists screech that it wasn't.
Read 6 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
22 Jun
1/Some thoughts on my interview with Marc Andreessen!

noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-ma…
2/Most interviews I do are back-and-forth, but this one was just me sending him a list of 10 questions, so I didn't respond in the interview itself! So here are some responses.
3/I think his libertarian perspective on the pandemic is more right than we'd care to admit (and similar to a point I made here: noahpinion.substack.com/p/climate-chan…).

But it does ignore the incredibly successful Operation Warp Speed, and the extremely fast vaccine rollout under Biden.
Read 19 tweets

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