Twitter vs. Musk: Trapping the Chaos Monkey, &
BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-10-06 Th
CONDITION: Not as Much “Organic Community Buzz”as I Would Like to See…
…around my Slouching Towards Utopia book <bit.ly/3pP3Krk>.
But there is some. And it is very nice:
Financial Times: The Best Books of the Week: ‘Slouching Towards Utopia <bit.ly/3pP3Krk> by J Bradford DeLong—fuelling America’s global dream: An economic history of the last century recalls a period that improved and redefined the lives of billions—yet also enabled war and environmental destruction…
Zach Carter: On Economic History: ‘Brad… knew he was swinging for the fences and he cared about getting it right. There's an intellectual flexibility at work in the book that I find really admirable, even when I don't necessarily agree with where he's taking things. Economic history is an unusual field. Good economists study it closely, but there is nevertheless an allergy to history in some corners of the discipline. Economists who love math think stories about the past are unscientific, and they’re right. But numbers without narrative are meaningless…. Understanding economics from an historical perspective helps demystify it…. Sudden enthusiasm for imposing profound hardship on millions of people could be defensible if it were scientifically necessary. There are a lot of sad things in the world beyond our control. But when we look under the hood, we find an intellectual mess…. Do read [my] review [of Slouching]…
Clearly I need to generate more organic community buzz!
FIRST: Twitter vs. Musk: Trapping the Chaos Monkey
UPDATE: Wow! Musk got his stay, over the objections of Twitter. I confess I did not see that coming.
DJ: ‘It's the ole' “this case is moot because we plan to do something in the future that will moot the case” defense…
This is not a joint motion from Twitter and Musk. This is only from Musk and his lawyers:
“Effectively mooted”.
Why is this not a joint stipulation? Or, rather, what is there in the deal he signed that Musk wants changed before he will actually close the deal that is sufficiently fraught to make Twitter unwilling to stipulate that closing is scheduled for on or about October 28? Or is it simply that Twitter not trust Musk enough to be willing to accomodate him on a delay-of-trial?
And why, if you are a lawyer who wants to practice before the Delaware Court of Chancery again, is this a piece of paper you would want to put under the nose of the very busy Chancellor, who regards you as and expects you to act like an Officer of the Court, rather than merely as a high-paid obsequious enabler of the chaos monkey?
This smells to me like Musk scared that he has driven away partners, that he may lose control of Tesla over the requirement that he fund the Twitter purchase, that he is demanding that his lawyers do something, and this is a something.
But I do expect more chaos-monkey shenanigans before the next phase of the Musk-Twitter saga commences, in which Musk actually has to run Twitter.
And I tentatively file this under: Things lawyers do to waste the time of a busy Chancellor in the hope that doing them will keep their chaos-monkey client from stiffing them.
MUST-WATCH: “A Farewell to Alms” Discussion
Alan Taylor moderates as Greg Clark, Tyler Cowen, and Brad DeLong discuss Greg Clark’s book:
MUST-LISTEN: An Interview With Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman About the Democratization of AI
Unfortunately paywalled:
Ben Thompson, Daniel Gross, & Nat Friedman: The Democratization of AI: I don’t generally do interviews with investors, but today is an exception. Daniel Gross founded Cue, a search engine that was bought by Apple and incorporated into iOS, and led machine learning efforts at Apple from 2013-2017, before becoming a partner at YCombinator and then transitioning into angel investing. Nat Friedman co-founded Xamarin, an open-source cross-platform SDK which was bought by Microsoft in 2016; Friedman led Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub of 2018, and was CEO of the developer-focused company until last year; he too is now focused on angel investing…
MUST-READ: The Permanent Problem of the Human Race
Brink Lindsey: What Is the Permanent Problem?: ‘Once a society becomes rich enough to make poverty exceptional rather than the rule, people start to want different things… belonging, self-respect, status, purpose, and meaning. This cultural shift has been most thoroughly documented by political scientist Ronald Inglehart in a long-running series of World Values Surveys…. Although consumer capitalism continues to raise material living standards, it has not been very effective at satisfying those higher, spiritual needs whose fulfillment defines a high quality of life. It does well enough for the well-educated professional and managerial elite—roughly the top 25 percent in contemporary rich democracies. Which is no mean accomplishment: never before in history has such a large fraction of society lived so well. For these people, their working lives are sufficiently interesting, challenging, and financially rewarding to be well worth all the associated rigors and stresses. But outside this golden circle, delineated these days primarily by educational credentials, things are different…. Yet what has unfolded in societies liberated from physical want falls far short of widespread individual flourishing. The progressive disintegration of family and community life is most severe among the less educated. Where once workplace solidarity and tight-knit social relationships were compensations for lower economic standing, now the new class divide leaves those outside the elite increasingly atomized and adrift…. Here then is the crux of the problem. Capitalism has roused us to elevate new values to the position of primary concern, but has failed to supply conditions consistent with achieving them. This is the classic situation that gives rise to revolutions and the collapse of established social orders: rising expectations without the means to fulfill them. This, in my view, is what’s provoking our “general nervous breakdown”…
Other Things That Went Whizzing by…
Very Briefly Noted:
Paul Krugman: Is the era of low interest rates over?: ‘The so-called natural rate of interest…. The fact that we didn’t see inflationary overheating over the course of a 30-year trend of falling interest rates suggests that the decline wasn’t artificial…. Investment spending is driven in large part by growth…. Since the 1990s… drivers of investment lost a lot of their momentum…. Is there any reason to expect either demography or technology to be more favorable for investment in, say, 2024 than they were in 2019? I don’t see it…. The era of low interest rates probably isn’t over after all…
Martin Wolf: Xi Jinping’s third term is a tragic error: ‘China’s macroeconomic, microeconomic and environmental difficulties remain largely unaddressed…
Nilay Patel: How Arm conquered the chip market without making a single chip, with CEO Rene Haas…
Nilay Patel: Pat Gelsinger came back to turn Intel around—here’s how it’s going: ‘Changed… culture… bet big on the silicon heartland…
Michael Clark: Meta’s shutting down its Substack competitor after less than two years…
Elizabeth Lopatto: Elon Musk says he’ll buy Twitter, again, for $54.20 a share, again: ‘“He was staring down the business end of what was likely going to be a very unpleasant deposition,” Talley says…. “The less charitable way to put it is that he just made stuff up. That would have been very uncomfortable for Musk and his legal team, and that’s definitely a motivation” to settle…
Scott Sumner: Thoughts on the neoliberal wave…
Tyler Cowen: What should I ask Brad DeLong?: ‘I will be doing a Conversation with him. So what should I ask? Do please remember, this is the Conversation I want to have…. And of course Brad has a new book out Slouching Toward Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century…
Chad Orzel: Why I'm Not Writing About This Year's Nobel: ‘Yes, I am aware of the irony of writing probably 1500 words about how I’m not writing about something. I contain multitudes, and all that
Noah Smith: Authoritarians are not governing effectively: ‘A week ago, I wrote that the supporters of liberal democracy need to offer the world a concrete vision of the kind of future they want to create. But even though this vision hasn’t yet emerged, the authoritarians of the world are already making a pretty good case for liberal democracy simply by being incredibly incompetent…
Rana Faroohar: Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World…
¶s:
Steve Schmidt: The Apostle Newt: ‘Newt Gingrich changed America for the worse. He ignited a cold civil war in America, and has wrought profound damage to American politics and the most important institutions in the country. He will be remembered as an odious and malignant figure in America’s history. He is a towering hypocrite, who took a wrecking ball to the US Congress and broke it. The appointment of his wife and former mistress as the American ambassador to the Holy See by Trump wasn’t just a disgrace, it was disgusting. There are few Americans who have done more to damage American unity and harm the American spirit than the self-declared “world historical figure.” He led the impeachment of a president in one of the greatest abuses of power and hypocrisy in American political history. Watching Gingrich play preacher and talk about Christ and the redemption of Herschel Walker is proof that, with each day, some new act of brazen insanity will crush the previous day’s records and achievements…
Kristine Aquino: Five Things: ‘Oil is poised for a second weekly advance after the OPEC+ alliance agreed to the biggest production cut since 2020. The move prompted Goldman Sachs to raise its oil price forecast. While higher energy prices stoke inflation, markets appear to be seizing on the thought that they will end up limiting demand, hit company earnings and slow economic growth. For US officials, who spent the past few days in a frantic lobbying effort to persuade Saudi Arabia and others in the group to change course, the implication is clear: in the increasingly hostile energy war between Russia and the West, Saudi Arabia is willing to help Vladimir Putin and snub Joe Biden…
Matt Yglesias: Ten years of YIMBYism have accomplished a lot: ‘The California approach so far has, I think, been driven largely by a sense of what they can get the votes for, which is great for a pioneering group. But my understanding is that the popularity of these reforms varies quite a bit from idea to idea, so it’s worth understanding which risks are worth running and which aren’t. Overall, though, I think the future is bright. Ten years ago, housing reform was considered a bizarre niche issue that nobody in the audience cared about and where change was politically impossible. Now, it’s a mainstream topic of discussion with real political champions, local activist groups around the country, and a blueprint for state-level change. More and more people also acknowledge these days that housing is just so central to the economy that you can’t treat it as a tiny quirky obsession of urbanists — anyone who cares about sustainable growth needs to care about housing supply…
The tone and intent of a project is formative - and illusive. In his new book, Slouching Toward Utopia, which is very interesting, nevertheless still is an advocate for a techno-finance world.
DeLong writes in many forms over and over, "Pull the world out of the dire poverty that had been humanity's lot" He treats "humanity" as including everyone, ignoring that the elite the bulk of the population wants is not refrigerates, important, but class, much more important. DeLong affirms the refrigerator and car for everyone rather thn a meaningful life where the bulk of the population has always wanted what the aristocrats already had/ It ends up affirming the wrong measure of the good life - consumers not citizens not court but Amazon, We have a money fetish, believing that enough money can buy anything.
The implication is that everyone was in dire straights and that the economic sphere was responsible for the pulling. This legitimizes more economic activity and growth,
But there were always rich among humanity that lived very well, in many ways better than the richest today (court culture and arts around the king were very interesting. Life on a yacht off the coast of Italy is not so terrific). If you were king or court food was extraordinarily varied and interesting. The daily scene of pomp and circumstances was complex and interesting and, above all, gave a fuller sense of the meaning of life than anyone has today.*
It was this life of the aristocrats that appealed to the rest of the population. Delong's incessantly repeating the theme that the economy made us better that gets in the way of a more profound sense of human well being that is post material but has been out of reach for most of the population.
Recent books like Wengrow and Graeber';s The Down of Everything brings together recent anthropological and archeological narratives of how much better off many were in earlier societies, better off materially and, yes, politically and socially, There was more sociability among the hunter gatherers in the field and around the camp fire than in modern suburban and urban life with its isolation from social contact.
Delong like so many economists like to use us numbers. For example average age at death as a meansure, but for part of the population (see the biographies of well know people such as the philosophers and political figures who live about as long as such people do now). Delong's implication is that what led to a good life did not exist before tech. The implication of Delong is that we should have more tech and more finance, but what created a good life for some, take for example medieval tapestries and court music, are left our of the plan for a better future.
The spread of a plush consumer life to the rest of the population has happened but only to a small number. Using figures like $2 per day income leaves out that much of the world lives ok on a zero dollar income - because they do not live in a money based economy but in a communitarian world of sharing. The reality for much of the world is being forced to move from relatively social village life to hi-rise dystopic alienation.
The good life is friends, family, arts, deep conversation, shelter (compare the modern apartment with life at court. I am not making a plea for a return to brutal class structures but to a better understanding that the good life is more social and cultural and less tehncial and financial.
see se Huizinga The Autumn of the Middle ages.
The real Permanent Problem is that widespread prosperity threatens existing leadership structures. The ruling class, and by that I mean maybe the top 0.01%, not a much broader one, gets threatened when too many people have too many options.
It's one of the causes of the middle income trap. We're seeing this play out in China. As China became wealthier, alternate power bases developed and threatened the leadership of the party. Wealthy corporate billionaires, popular celebrities, alternative cultures all threaten the ruling party and have to be co-opted or suppressed.
It's one of the causes of our current long term wage stagnation and the decoupling of income and productivity. The middle class got uppity and overconfident in the 1960s. Then the ruling class used the crises of the 1970s to slap them down, and here we are, once again facing an induced economic reset to keep the hierarchy in place.
The Permanent Problem of providing a purpose in life has always existed, but much of ideological assault on the rising middle classes of the 1960s was a massive propaganda effort against collective action and touting the importance of personal responsibility. For decades, Americans have been told that their only purpose in life was to work and earn a living. They were economic units. Having children was about producing new workers.
Everything else was suspect and to be subordinated. Even religion was deprecated when it challenged the status quo. Both the Old Testament and New Testament are radical economic documents. There's a reason for the collapse in belief and even pro forma engagement.