The Power and the Money

The end of progress? Probably not.

Robert Gordon just published a paper that is very pessimistic about long-term economic growth. It essentially argues that the big wave of innovation from IT is over. Infotech may radically reorder our lives in the coming decades, but it won’t allow us to make more stuff. Moreover, the big important inventions have been made. His example: would you rather give up all the electronic and IT stuff invented after 1975, or keep all that but have to abandon indoor plumbing?

As a metaphor for the state of play, that nails it. If it doesn’t for you, that is because you have never had to live without indoor plumbing. At night. In the rain.

There are three ripostes to this thesis. The first is that Moore’s Law ain’t over yet. (More to the point, Koomey’s Law ain’t over yet: it states that the energy efficiency of computers doubles every 18 months.) If Moore and Koomey hold for another decade or two, then there is the possibility that AI will emerge seemingly out of nowhere, sometime in the 2030s. Economic growth will surge, but prepare yourself for the robot riots. (I will be joining the rioters, and training my young son to lead them.)

There are reasons to think this will not happen, possibly ever. (I can hope!)

The second riposte, then, is that even without singularian magic, better computers will improve productivity the old-fashioned way. Consider construction robots. My co-blogger and I went back-and-forth on this with our friends Will Baird and Carlos Yu. We concluded that construction is a super-conservative fragmented industry, so there will be no revolution (or robot riots) ... but there will be a slow trickle out of construction (and vehicle operation) just as there was out of agricultural labor, elevator operation, and telegraph delivery. That could keep growth going for a while yet. (Matt Yglesias points out some other sectors ripe for growth here.)

But there is an even more convincing riposte than the above two. It comes from Carlos Yu, and it is based on work by Alexander Field, an economic historian who has pointed out that the Depression-wracked 1930s were likely the most technologically-productive decade of the past century.

What then is the third riposte?

SHORT VERSION: Stop focusing on the damn computers!

LONGER VERSION: “After reading Alexander Field’s book, I distrust the simple correlation in timing between technological improvements and productivity growth. In any case, Gordon is over-focused on the immediate implications of information technology, and he’s missed the one under his nose: biotechnology.

“The Green Revolution doesn’t show up much in American productivity statistics, since our crops had already been improved through a hundred-plus years of scientific selective breeding, but it does show up in global productivity. (Though biotechnology is probably keeping our crop yields high in the biological arms race against disease and pests, but that’s hard to quantify with typical productivity measurements.)

“Cheap effective medicines is another. For many health issues, we can actually buy a few more years of life — or more than a few — at prices far below the break-even point. If we take his question about toilets versus computers and switch it to toilets versus postwar improvements in the applied biological sciences, I think we’d be carrying our chamberpots to the outhouse.

“And now we’re entering the second wave of improvements in biotechnology, ones based on the information technology revolution. It might be a dud. I strongly suspect not.”

The internets are freedom-neutral

Not unexpectedly, the protests over the recent Mexican election (which will go nowhere) have led to bloviations about Twitter and Facebook and the blogosphere yadda yadda. My skepticism about the political effect of the Internet is well-known. Here I pointed out that the Egyptian government readily shut it down during the rebellion. Here I mentioned that revolutionary activity spread further and just as fast in the mid-nineteenth century. And here I presented evidence that most revolutionary mobilization in Egypt took place via ... printed leaflets.

So I was gratified when Mex Files (which you should all read regularly) published photographic evidence that angry young Mexicans agree with me.

“If I had known that you would be a cowardly Mexican, then I would’ve stuck to taking care of my cows. I didn’t have the Internet or Facebook, and I made a revolution. You, you’re too lazy to march for your rights. But hey, ‘Viva México,’ right?”

Right. I actually don’t think the recent Mexican election was fraudulent, and I still say right. The internet has made political mobilization easier — but only for those who were going to mobilize without it.

Ray Kurzweil never went to business school

I gotta be honest: this makes the future less scary.

God bless the lawyers.

This is your father’s revolution

 There seems to be some evidence that the Egyptian protests have been organized the old-fashioned way.

Thursday, January 27: Anonymous leaflets circulating in Cairo also provide practical and tactical advice for mass demonstrations, confronting riot police, and besieging and taking control of government offices. Signed “long live Egypt”, the slickly produced 26-page document calls on demonstrators to begin with peaceful protests, carrying roses but no banners, and march on official buildings while persuading policemen and soldiers to join their ranks.

The leaflet asks recipients to redistribute it by email and photocopy, but not to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter, which are being monitored by the security forces.

Charlie Stross suggested recently: “If I was in charge of organizing communications within a mass insurgency today, I would have an iron rule for comsec: With the exception of tools for real-time communication in the field during tactical engagements, no communication technology invented after 1945 may be used. Yes, microdots. Yes, dead letter drops. Yes, invisible ink made at the kitchen sink out of household ingredients. Yes, human couriers. Make the f--kers work to intercept our communications and hunt us down.”

It is still unclear to me that the internet had much effect on organizing the Egyptian revolt. It is fairly clear that it made it easier for the Iranian government to suppress the demonstrations in 2009. Malcolm Gladwell still stands.

Now, as far as validating a pet theory, conscription may be playing a key role in why the Egyptian army has not acted against the rioters ... or it may not. Thoughts?

Things happened before the Internet, really

 Enough, already! Now Steven Walt has joined the ranks of the people stunned by the effect of the internets. “A combination of modern mass media (Al Jazeera, the Internet, email, Twitter, etc.) has clearly played a major role in driving the pace of events.” I could handle this kind of thing from 20-somethings who don’t remember when you had to wait for a letter to arrive in the mail. But Steven Walt?

I am at a loss as to why people keep coming back to the Internets. Here is a chronology of recent events:

Dec. 17 - Mohamed Bouazizi sets fire to himself in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia.
Jan. 04 - Bouazizi dies of his burns. 
Jan. 14 - After days of riots, President Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia.
Jan. 22 - Protests in Algeria.
Jan. 23 - Protests in Yemen.
Jan. 25 - Protests in Cairo.

And here is an even more impressive and more rapid chain of events:

Feb. 22 - French government bans protest meetings. Riots break out.
Feb. 23 - Prime Minister Guizot resigns.
Feb. 26 - King flees to Britain.
Feb. 27 - Protest marches in Germany. Governments give into demands.
Mar. 13 - Riots flare in Vienna. Metternich resigns.
Mar. 15 - Mass demonstrations in Budapest.
Mar. 18 - Demonstrations in Berlin.
Mar. 20 - Uprising in Poland.
Mar. 31 - Constitution drafted for Germany.
Apr. 08 - Revolt in Moldava.

The difference? The first group happened in 2010-11, and the second in 1848. But somehow that has gone right into the memory hole. I am flabbergasted that the Brazilian, Philippine, and Chinese events of my living memory seem to have been forgotten. I am surprised that nobody seems to mention 1968. But I really stunned that 1848 has been lost in the frenzy to declare how super marvelicious the internet is for freedom.

I am making a strong argument here: if the internet had been magically shut down on December 17th, events would have proceeded in much the same way. News travels and people organize in ways that do not involve modern electronic communication.

And that is why Egypt’s internet shutdown is not having much effect. Except in surprising the more breathless techno-evangelists.

The internet is a series of tubes ... actual physical real-world tubes

 I hate internet triumphalism. The new communications technology of the last two decades is clearly changing society. Those changes are probably for the better. But the recent political upheaval has led to triumphalism of the worst sort, with all sorts of blather about Twitter revolutions and the like. It really drives me crazy, as if people have suddenly forgotten that spontaneous mass political mobilizations happened all the time back in the day. If the events in the links are too obscure, well, they are other, more famous ones. In short, there is no reason to believe that social networking or cell phones played any sort of irreplaceable role in the current unrest besetting Egypt and Yemen.

Moreover, the internet actually requires real-world infrastructure. Which governments can shut down. Through the expedient of making a phone call. The Egyptian government appears to have made just such a call. From the link:

We have examined the takedown event more closely, looking at the sequence in which Egyptian service providers removed themselves from the Internet. The following plot shows the number of available networks for each of the significant providers, between 22:00 and 23:00 UTC last night (midnight to 1am Cairo time). Our new observation is that this was not an instantaneous event on the front end; each service provider approached the task of shutting down its part of the Egyptian Internet separately.

 
Telecom Egypt (AS8452), the national incumbent, starts at 22:12:43.
Raya joins in a minute later, at 22:13:26.
Link Egypt (AS24863) begins 4 minutes later, at 22:17:10.
Etisalat Misr (AS32992) goes two minutes later, at 22:19:02
Internet Egypt (AS5536) goes six minutes later, at 22:25:10.

First impressions: this sequencing looks like people getting phone calls, one at a time, telling them to take themselves off the air. Not an automated system that takes all providers down at once; instead, the incumbent leads and other providers follow meekly one by one until Egypt is silenced.

The Egyptian government may fall. Or it may not. But it won’t be because of the Internet.

What is the weather service like in Tanzania?

 That is something that I have always wondered. And lo, Doug Muir answers:

Much better than you’d think. Not clear why. But it’s providing good, real-time information for both weather predictions and best-guess seasonal stuff. 

Tanzania has 95% mobile coverage. So almost every community — every dusty little plains village, every wandering band of Masai — now has at least one guy with a cell phone who can get regular text updates on when the rains are coming and how long they’re likely to be.

Satellite data is cheap or free, basic forecasting techniques are known and easily taught. So why don’t other African countries have good weather services too? I’m not sure, but I think this is another positive-legacy-of-socialism thing: lots of little local weather stations, plus a good tradition of a strong government weather service. Apparently the weather guys are something that’s all too rare in Africa: an educated elite who aren’t afraid to spend time out in the villages or get their hands dirty. 

Anyway, good weather service = huge, huge difference in quality of life. If nothing else, it dramatically reduces the uncertainty.

Random observations

 I don't do a lot of random observing on this blog. It may be time to start. So here are few. As always, comments and long involved arguments are desired.

(1) The internet and social networking are overrated. (I'm looking at you, Randy.) Way way overrated. Had computer technology been four decades more advanced, we would be pinning all the tumult of the sixties and seventies on the internet. Weather Underground, blame it on Facebook! Had it been six decades more advanced, we would have been bored. You know, like anyone surfing the net in the UAE can get bored. Click the link and tell me why I'm wrong. (That one goes to Charlie Stross. But how the hell did he manage to erase my post about meeting him in a bad bar in Boston?)

(2) Lay off my man from St. Lucia Saint Kitts! Alexander Hamilton is the hero of every muscular patriotic American pinko. He is why you can be a lefty Big Government type (with all respect to Alex Harrowell, I will have to disavow the term socialist, since it's become a curse word in my country) and still evoke the founding fathers. I will give props to libertarians (hey! Guy Tower! Why you don't read this, G?) but I will not let Dick Armey lie about the founding father of the nationalist American left.

(3) Basta with the Massa puns. (Scott? I haven't heard any from you, but I know you thinking 'em.) Seriously, people. Funny once. No more emails, please.

(4) You should all read more Alex Harrowell.

(5) I write this in Paris. Paris has a lot of white people. Really, the city is surprisingly chock full of 'em. But a major figure at a well-funded think tank says it ain't! Am I confused? So I looked up the figures. I was only able to find the 1999 results, which told me that 17.6% of the city's population was foreign born. Of those, 14% were Algerian-born, 13% from Portugal, 10% from Morocco, 6% from Tunisia, 4% from the madre patria, another 4% from the country that I often think really should be the madre patria, and 3% from Turkey. That comes to 54% of the foreign-born. Speaking as somebody who mistook the Moroccan fellow who drove him from the airport for an Eastern European and then asked his equally-Moroccan barber if he was from Italy, I leave any conclusions about Charles Murray's character (or my ability to identify accents in a foreign language) as an exercise for the reader. I do of course assume that Mr. Murray realized that people from Martinique, Guadaloupe, Guyana, Reunion, and (very soon) Mayotte are indeed as French as any blond German-speaking dude from Alsace.

(6) Man, there were a lot of cigarette butts in the gutter this morning when I took the metro in to the office. I ... like that.

I like France. I can't help it.

Cool stuff

  Crazy busy these days.  Will try to post more, promise!

In the meantime, two things.  First, I watched the first episode of Flashforward on ABC yesterday.  Not bad!  Despite being a little overly “cinematic,” my wife liked it too.  To her surprise.  The best thing?  They had “Quiet Dog” by Mos Def playing when everyone blacked out.  Awesome.

Second, this is old, but kinda cool.  I think.  Libby Dole and Lebed as the presidents?  Huh.

MMORG, son of Worf, or something

  I have never played an MMORG.  I think ... no, I know that I would have loved them when I was twelve, but all we had back then was Compuserve.  Thank God.  I am sort of glad that I became an adult and lost interest before the technology came of age.  These days, the only gaming I do is on an old Atari emulator.  Viva Missile Command!

My lack of experience may, in fact, be why I find this hysterical:

The webisodes are even funnier.  At least to somebody who has never actually played a MMORG, and probably never will.  YMMV, so reviews are desired!

A public service announcement that has nothing to do with Honduras

  This was one of the most useful signs I've ever spotted while driving along a rural highway.

“Watch what you put on the Internet.  Think before posting.”   

And I thought blogging might be a mistake?

  OK, everyone in America who hits the interwebs has probably heard about Senator Grassley's totally awesome imitation of Cher Horowitz by now.  But on the off chance that there is somebody out there reading this blog who hasn't, be you from elsewhere in the English-speaking world or beyond, click this link right now.  All indications are that this is not a hoax.

That is a U.S. Senator talking.  Yup.  Dude, is there a word for when something intended to be ironic turns out to be accurate?  Twitter, indeed.  I previously had no desire to try using it, let alone read the results:  now I have an active aversion.  Reverse marketing indeed, ironic in its lack of irony.

Somehow I seem to have found deep meaning in such gems as  “My carbon footprint is abt 25per cent of Al Gore. I'm greener than Al Gore. Is that enuf?” and “Comfort America worried abt hyperinflation Reafirm ACCORD of1951” or even “Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a "hammer" u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL.” 

Or ... well, click the link.

Department of WTF, once more

  These are not like things.  The data do not say what the people making the connection seem to think that they say.