SpaceX is undergoing some reorganization to accelerate the timeline for Musk's satellite internet project.
Arguably related: Aerospace America on the perilous road to Mars.
French artist Thomas Appéré renders Ryugu in comparison to several major cities, which gives a nice sense of scale.
Scott Alexander has been particularly prolific this month and I'm wildly behind. The major items include updates on ketamine, SSRIs, marijuana and preschool, with a new Much More Than You Wanted To Know on the latter.
Long-time rationality blogger Kelsey Piper does a Vox Explainer on Nick Bostrom's vulnerable world hypothesis. It's a worrying read, and it's not clear what we can do about it. World government is often brought up in this situation, but it's not obvious that that would actually reduce long-term existential risk.
A new (?) rationality blog argues that rationality is not systematize winning and discusses why this formulation is so controversial in the first place.
Robin Hanson on funding prestige science.
Speaking of which: scientists finally isolate enough specimens of a long-elusive microorganism to sequence its DNA. It turns out that they represent an entirely new supra-kingdom of life.
Doing statistics on an illustration from Jurassic Park.
Senator Sasse (R-NE) discusses the impact that high-fidelity photo and video manipulation could have on the future of journalism and political trust.
Our World In Data looks at income inequality in 83 countries and concludes that's there was no global trend between 1990 and 2015. Certain regions and many individual countries saw significant rises, but enough countries saw insignificant change or reduction to defy a clean narrative.
Data does not suggest that corporal punishment is good for child development, and countries than ban it tend to have less violent crime among youths. The researchers are careful to note that this doesn't necessarily prove anything: countries which ban spanking are probably different in other ways, as well.
The surprisingly sensible case for building a Congressional dorm. Representatives-elect who can't afford DC rent until their salaries take effect in January are making a lot of headlines, but there's also pragmatic reasons to consider such a project. It reduces the barrier-to-entry for relatively regular citizens to run for office, and bipartisan room assignments might improve the political climate on Capitol Hill.
In what may be a related story, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA)—yes, that Joe Kennedy—wants House Democrats to focus on a positive-sum economic ideology, rather than the current left-right conflict.
Meanwhile, in Connecticut, the argument for reforming the party primary system gets stronger.
US crops are rotting in warehouses as farmers suddenly can't sell their crops to China. Grain silos are full and farm bankruptcies have doubled since 2014. It's almost like tariffs are bad for the little guy. New Zealand, on the other hand, abolished farm subsidies in the 1980s and now their agricultural industry is stronger than the rest of their economy.
Another pro-market solution: Congress might actually vote on a carbon tax. The proposed bill, which has bipartisan support, would remove a lot of existing emissions limits and substitute a flat fee per ton of CO2 released. Because this would raise consumer prices, revenue from the tax would go into a citizens dividend for a net benefit to poorer Americans. Personally I'd prefer to spend the money on a broad-spectrum strategy to improve our energy economy, but creating a mini-UBI would certainly go a long way toward passing it.
Exciting news from the Supreme Court: civil asset forfeiture is probably going to be ruled a violation of the Eighth Amendment. This is the latest from the interesting coalition between Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch on criminal justice reform.
