Welcome back to the Stove Top weekly newsletter. As usual, each edition has a few brief stories and finishes with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Enjoy.

We Should Really Consider Geoengineering

In the very serious fight against climate change, a significant portion of activists propose the very unserious solution of cutting carbon emissions. It’s practically impossible because a large share of emissions come from countries that aren’t going to play ball and politically impossible because nobody wants to deal with the degrowth necessary to cut emissions.

But what really makes it unserious is that there are much better solutions just staring at us. On the energy side, we almost have near-limitless clean energy via nuclear fusion. And on the too much carbon side, we have geoengineering.

Defined as the “deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change”, geoengineering is best illustrated through an example.

The ocean is really god damn hot this year. So hot that seabirds have been dying en masse off the coast of Ireland. The obvious cause is climate change, but that doesn’t explain why things have ramped up so suddenly. The blame for that falls on a new policy that has cut ships’ sulfur pollution by 80%.

That’s a good thing because it’s improved air quality, but it’s a bad thing because the clouds are now reflecting less sunlight, which has resulted in warmer ocean temperatures.

This is just one example of geoengineering, and it’s obviously not the best one as the negative effects of polluting the earth outweigh the positive. But there are tons of potentially very positive ways to geoengineer the Earth:

• We can farm the ocean.

• We can flood deserts.

• We can reflect sunlight with white paint.

• We can suck carbon out of the air.

Now, there is of course some risk involved with geoengineering. We only have one Earth, and if we screw something up, it’s pretty much GGs. Nobody wants a Matrix black sky situation.

But, if the alternative is burning to death or living in an authoritarian-imposed (because nobody would ever willingly go along with it) degrowth environment, give me the geoengineering every day of the week.

The Skilled Laborer Problem

The US needs more skilled laborers. Unfortunately, we insist on making that as difficult as possible.

The prime example is our dumbass work visa rules. But politics is ultimately downstream of culture, and our culture is what’s holding us back here.

Consider the case of Taiwan Semiconductor. They want to put a semiconductor plant in the US, which would be absolutely awesome. However, they’ve been unable to do so because there are not enough people in the US who knows how to build semiconductors. So they proposed bringing some Taiwanese engineers over to bridge the gap and get the Americans up to speed.

It’s a more than reasonable offer, but it’s one that the US trade unions are blocking because they are worried about losing their job. It’s an unbelievably stupid reason to block this, as the job doesn’t even exist without the Taiwanese coming over.

But fear over job loss isn’t the only reason people fight against skilled immigration. There are also a good amount of people who worry about imported scientists, mainly Chinese, stealing technology and taking it back to their homeland.

This is unbelievably stupid. International students compromise 40% of the graduate STEM population. Chinese students make up 37% of this 40%. Where are you going to replace this production?

Even if it is true that Chinese students are rampant thieves of American intellectual property (which I’m not sure is true), it’s not like they are coming over here, doing nothing but stealing shit, and going back. They are the ones in the labs making shit, which they then take back home.

A world without Chinese students isn’t one where China lives in the dark ages. It’s one in which both of us lose out.

Ultimately, if we’re worried about national security, we should quit caring so much about China stealing our shit and instead focus on keeping the scientists here (which we’re doing a horrible job of right now), boosting our industrial production, and training the military as best we can.

The Birth Rate Is A Problem

This will be the scariest graph you see this week.

Yep, the US birth rate has dropped 20% since 2007. This is extremely bad because our society is built upon the young subsidizing the old. If there are no more young people, the whole system collapses.

Unfortunately, the birth rate issue is hard to fix because no one knows what’s causing it:

• Money is obviously a concern, but people today have more money than ever before, and it’s not like people didn’t have kids when everybody was dirt fucking poor (basically all of human existence).

• Maybe it’s too hard to do it with work, but many countries today provide generous pro-parental benefits, and even they aren’t doing well birth rate-wise.

• The absence of religion also doesn’t explain it, as even the more religious countries are below the replacement level.

• Widespread and growing infertility issues could be another cause, but it doesn’t explain such a steep and rapid drop.

But, me and my bro science think the answer is actually pretty simple. A sizeable percentage of women aren’t interested in having kids. In the old days, that wasn’t socially acceptable, so they went and had the kids anyway. Contrast that to today where not having kids is very socially accepted. There are Reddit forums with 1.5M members, article after article on why you shouldn’t have kids, and a popular TikTok account that keeps a list of reasons why you shouldn’t have a kid.

Is it really surprising that the birth rate dropped following 2007, which is right around the time that social media really took off? Would you want to have a kid if everyone was telling you how shit it is?

The falling birth rate really might just be a correction to the mean. In that case, we’re going to have to think about either:

• Making up for the production shortfall that comes with not having enough people.

• Reorganizing society to deal with the production shortfall.

Either way, we should really start to have that conversation soon, because this birth rate ain’t going back up.

Privacy

• The Kids Online Safety Act is a travesty.

• You can now use AI to steal data using just keystroke audio.

• The NYT is pushing the pro-surveillance propaganda.

• Tech companies are selling your privacy back to you.

• Intel’s GPUs collect an obscene amount of your data.

• In a rare Chinese W, they are (kinda) limiting the use of facial recognition technology.

• India’s pathway to legal surveillance got a boost this week.

• Weekly reminder that AI can read your mind.

• The UK is defending its anti-encryption plans by saying it’s necessary to confront child abuse, which is what they always say.

• Russia is blocking VPNs.

Extras

• A good amount of people feel like they work useless jobs…because they do.

• Our military sucks right now. We’re going to need a lot more startups like Anduril.

• DeSantis might be driving away Florida’s college teachers.

• It’s time to start doubting how honest your dentist is.

• The era of ultracheap stuff is in jeopardy.

• Screw putting your energy toward AI that can actually be helpful for society, it’s time to make some money.

• White people don’t have much majority time left.

• Disney is using AI to cut costs.

• AI is disrupting more people than you think. In today’s examples, it’s hurting the YouTube thumbnail industry. 

• If you don’t think China will one day invade Taiwan, please go to a doctor.

• China’s out, Mexico’s in.

• The government wants the private sector to beef up the nation’s cyber defense.

• Latin America is embracing militarization.

• China’s economy has slipped into deflation.

• MIT made a calculator that tells you what a living wage is in a given region.

• Apparently, German Linux company SUSE hates Jewish people.

• Credit card debt has topped $1T.

• The Inflation Reduction Act isn’t very good at reducing inflation, but it is really good at spurring green energy investment.

• Chinese bankers are subjected to the cruel and unusual punishment of studying the thoughts of Xi.

• It’s pretty clear that the pandemic relief program was the most scammed program of all time.

• There are 28 vacant homes for every person experiencing homelessness.

• Colleges spend an absolute criminal amount of money, which is part of the reason college is so damn expensive now.

• Happy start of the Premier League season.

Until next time, ✌️

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