#335: I Review Kevin Drum's 'Trends' List
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The list's full description is on Kevin's website. Here we have the barest description (black text is quoted), and my commentary, in green.
1. US politics will stay toxic as long as Fox News is around. Rupert Murdoch has discovered that spreading fear and outrage is the most reliable way of making money....
Kevin has been writing, recently, about how Fox News propaganda is the crux of what's wrong with our politics. And he's right. But, couldn't Fox slide downhill, over 10-20 years, along with the number of its core viewers? If so, it'll be ignored, until it's not there anymore.
2. Don't worry so much about China. China is now, and will remain, our biggest rival.... They are a paranoid autocracy that will never fully embrace market capitalism. This is their Achilles' heel....
Authoritarian governance is rarely good governance. That's because Big Man leaders are self-chosen, and likely quite egocentric--if not, they'd likely fail on their way up the ladder. But egotists make poor decisions, due to their self-interest getting in the way.
3. Black students need to graduate from high school reading at a 12th grade level. This will not "solve" racism. However, it will prove impossible to make very much progress on reducing racism until Black kids are performing at the same level as white kids.
Something has to happen to our system of school funding to get resources to the neediest school districts. Otherwise, there's little hope. Here's the argument for focusing Biden's Infrastructure bill on school upgrades. (Since Biden's plan only has $100 billion for schools, maybe at least one big school district pilot project per year--just to show what's possible).
4. Geoengineering is our future. ....[T]he world has shown no willingness to take the collective action needed to address climate change, and it's unlikely that a fabulous new invention will do the job either. Around 2040 or so this will become obvious and the only alternative will be some sort of geoengineering.
And yet the price of renewable energy keeps falling (compared to coal, oil, nuclear and gas). Electrify things like transport, use batteries for temporary storage, and it's all possible. Kennedy's 'Man on the moon' seemed just as unlikely, until it happened. Geoengineering, on the other hand, is the solution that's ready-made for those seeking delay.
5. The United States is the best placed country in the world right now. For all our faults, the US is by far the country best positioned to be successful over the next few decades.
An uncommon observation. Most people would disagree in light of recent events. I'm with Kevin on this.
6. We are entering a biotech golden age. Cheap genome sequencing, CRISPR, and mRNA vaccines are harbingers of the near future.
I'm not on board. Aside from a few obvious health benefits, etc., there's much that's unnecessary, as well as potentially dangerous, once we begin tinkering with life's basic structure. That's my initial, conservative, reaction.
7. Islamic terrorism will disappear within a decade.
Here's Kevin at his best. His most recent writing on the link between leaded gasoline and violence is here.
8. Artificial intelligence is coming. Real AI is still about 20 years away, but when it comes it will be the biggest breakpoint ever in human history.
Kevin knows a thousand times more than I do about AI. Still, "biggest hype ever" is begging for a takedown.
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