Axel Merk

Suleyman's containment leads to Orwellian dystopia

Revisado: 03-31-24

Mustafa Suleyman warns of the potential perils of AI, illustrating, for example, that any individual or small group will soon be empowered to create and disseminate a biological weapon or unleash an army of armed drones. He makes a compelling argument (the best part of the book) that destructive use of AI cannot be contained, no matter how hard we try. His proposed solution is to contain it. In case I need to spell it out: this is a fatal flaw in his approach.

Suleyman containment strategy is a political manifesto in which he describes what I assess to be an Orwellian dystopia that includes, for example, getting arrested for typing the wrong line of code in your basement. The logical extension of his containment plan is that you get penalized for the wrong thoughts.

As Suleyman wants to get a debate going about AI, let me provide a different sense through which to see the challenges ahead: Suleyman writes about how weak governments might falter under the change that AI might bring with it. Except, we do not need AI to have weak governments fail in what is to come. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker talked about the "3 verities" that make for a stable government: sustainable finances, stable prices and good governance, then elaborates how in the U.S. all three have been weakening. This is relevant because Volcker provides concrete ideas to make societies stronger without Suleyman's containment plan. FWIW, I don't agree with all of Volcker's specific ideas about good governance, but he provides a valuable framework.

A different lens is provided by Niall Ferguson in "The Square and the Tower" in which he goes through history examining what types of governments have survived when faced with disruption and which ones have faltered. Like Suleyman, Ferguson references the printing press as a disruptive technology, except Ferguson dives far deeper into the analysis, linking it to devastating wars in Europe. Ferguson draws parallels to the disruptive effects of social media. Again, no AI is necessary to be rather concerned about the future. The essence of Ferguson's message is that societies built from ground up (networked societies - think of a town square) are more robust than societies organized hierarchically (think tower). I put Suleyman's containment strategy in the "tower" camp where an elite has convinced itself that it knows best how to protect its citizens; alas, it is destined to fail.

To be clear, I share Suleyman's concern that AI may well amplify and/or accelerate certain types of disruptions. Unfortunately, in an attempt to express urgency Suleyman implies AI is more advanced than it is by stating that it at times appears to be have features of general AI. AI at its core is a fancy compression algorithm, compressing knowledge via a grey box (the neural network). Since the 1980s, a lot of progress has been made, but just like statistics, AI expresses correlations rather than causation. That doesn't mean it can't be useful, but it is an important limitation. Just recently, Bloomberg journalists uncovered a racist bias in an AI tool that is meant to aid recruiters to go through resumes. It would be stunning if such a model was not racist given it is trained on historic correlation. I trust that whoever programmed that model will add restrictions to make it at least comply with the law, although it may well end up being quite a micromanaged model given that it will find proxies for race in its quest to justify its correlations. More useful for this sort of query may be that a model recognizes that it would deliver racist answer, alert the user and possibly offer suggestions on related questions that would not yield racist answers. Without causation, however, I very much doubt we will get truly general AI. Judea Pearl in "The Book of Why" discusses this. That said, even if we don't achieve general AI, but only a proxy that few can distinguish, it doesn't diminish some of the risks Suleyman points to.

The big "leap" AI has made of late is the natural language interface (natural language processing itself is a branch of AI). The implication is that users without technical training can easily access the power of AI models. Importantly, a rapidly increasing number of people recognize the seemingly limitless capabilities of AI. My digression above is meant as a reminder that the technology has limitations and the untrained user may not be able to identify them.

I just wrote that a program might be able to suggest that a query is racist and propose an alternative way of phrasing it. That in itself can lead to significant controversy. Recently, social media users complained that one AI model refused to write a publicly available text that some readers might find offensive; another AI model had no such problem and showed it. Who decides of what may be shown? This is relevant because Suleyman's containment plan wants to protect us from harm.

Talking about protection, Suleyman gives ideas how pandemic preparedness could be improved. He correctly points out that the US scored well on preparedness plans compared to other countries based on pre-pandemic scores assigned, but health outcomes were worse than that of lower ranked countries. His plan suggests an increase in the bureaucracy to name but one feature; this feature, though, is telling, as he jumps to conclusion with this as with many topics because, presumably, in his view, the answer is self-apparent. But it is not. Reasonable people have different perspectives. For example, to paraphrase aforementioned Ferguson, he argues that the US had a failure of "middle management" -- a bloated bureaucracy that was good at generating reports, but not so good at execution.

Staying with bureaucracy for a moment, more red tape protects the incumbent and stifles innovation. To Suleyman, this may be a good thing as it slows down the development of bad applications. I would like to point out that also hinders the development by the private sector of technologies that hep protect against bad applications.

Let me go back to the destructive forces that may get governments to fail. As I have indicated, we do not need AI for that risk. Indeed, I believe the relative peace we have enjoyed in much of the world since WWII is coming to an end for a host reasons beyond the scope of this review. One of the amazing strengths of the US has been that it has a government that has been able to adjust and evolve. It's a slow process, it's a messy process, and not every step taken is forward. Yet, it's a proven process and, I would argue, a better process than in other countries. Suleyman's mission is to protect the status quo. If history is any guide, governments that have tried too hard to protect the status quo rather than evolve fail.

Let me take one example that's frequently cited as a disruptive force that might even topple some governments: the rise of misinformation. Misinformation is not a new invention. What is new is the ease of generating and spreading it. Yet, while it is clear that someone claiming 1+1=3 is misinformation, on many other topics, it is far less from clear and often in the eye of the beholder. We won't eliminate misinformation, but over time find ways to cope with it without undermining trust -- however, that process might take years and there will likely be failed governments, failed corporations or ruined reputations along the way.

Suleyman is concerned government will lose power in some areas. That may well be the case; the question is in which areas is this acceptable, and I would think reasonable people will disagree on the details.

Suleyman sprinkles in a political agenda beyond his containment dogma. He explains how prosperity has increased for all due to technology, then complains that today's wealth distribution is unacceptably high and laments social immobility is widening inequality and political violence on the rise. His vision will alleviate these issues. He raises a host of other questions. What they have in common is that they may be best addressed by the political process. If Suleyman's interest is to get as many people as possible on board his vision on how to contain AI, I don't understand why he is willing to lose half his audience with his agenda.

Suleyman argues for a kill switch in applications, a back door. Not merely a kill switch for the user, but a kill switch for government. I just hope the good guys will always be in charge of government, in each and every country.

Suleyman banks on "techno diplomacy", a new global institution as arbiter, a dedicated regulator, but also a technical arbiter that avoids overreach. Given the deep skepticism about the effectiveness and desirability of supra-national institutions that would potentially limit the ability of the US to set its own policy, he needs to refine his arguments. Suleyman pleas with the reader to start with an audit authority. He basically argues that the computer of every person should be searchable by authorities any time. His argument: openness is a straightforward recipe for catastrophe.

But is it? When new weapons for war were developed in the past, power balances shifted. It should not be news to anyone that drones will play a very integral part in wars to come and nothing will stop that. Yes, it can be destructive. Warfare will be reinvented and in a world that's more fragile (even without AI), it's not something to look forward to. We've had many periods of arms races and this will be no different.

Suleyman eludes to "containment" as the solution early in the book; for him, it is obvious that it is the solution, except he fails to define what he even means with containment until one can gauge it from when he finally lays out his containment strategy. That's a mistake because had he taken the time to define it, maybe he would have had an opportunity to more fully analyze alternatives. He doesn't because, to Suleyman, catastrophe must be the outcome if his plan is not followed. Yet he readily admits his plan is an "excruciating tightrope" and one misstep leads into the abyss. I trust I'm not the only reader to think that this is not a path I can endorse. I consider the odds of staying on such tightrope to be 0. Conversely, I don't consider his Orwellian attractive, to put it mildly.

What's the answer then? The answer is to work on strengthening the basics of our democratic institutions, to foster innovations, to communicate the values of liberal democracy to mobilize the best and the brightest to help innovate to advance humanity while developing tools to help deal with new threats.

I'm not downplaying some of the very real risks Suleyman is pointing to. But just as biological weapons may get easier to develop, so will biodefenses. Sure, we should try to contain them, just as the world is trying to contain the spread of nuclear weapons.

Intellectuals told us that population growth must be contained or it will end in catastrophe. This is one of the less controversial failures of well meaning people in power. We will see the demographic collapse in China unfold in front of our eyes. But it's by far not the only failure.

A symptom of our time is that we frame issues as catastrophic if we don't get it our way. In order to have a serious conversation about the pros and cons of different approaches, we need to reduce the rhetoric. That may not be easy given the convictions. Suleyman's book has many missed opportunities on building bridges to those who don't agree with him. My review is an attempt to engage nonetheless as I agree that there are challenges that deserve a awareness and discussion to allow prudent policy to be implemented where warranted..

History has shown that humanity advances when innovation is fostered rather than stifled. It's not acceptable that a small elite can decide of what's good and evil - Suleyman's autocratic vision leads to revolution and collapse, not the advancement of society.

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The big picture

Revisado: 09-30-23

Sowell frames social justice in a historic context, minces no words in how intellectual elites have imposed their views on what's best onto the poor, causing significant harm without themselves suffering consequences. Amongst others, Sowell
* sees the eugenics movement of a century ago driven by the same mindset of today's social justice advocates;
* blames the minimum wage for soaring black teenage unemployment and crime; and
* blames affirmative action of setting up young minorities for failure (high dropout rates of very talented minorities at elite universities; he also shows that elite schools aren't inherently providing a better education, but that students have better outcomes when the schools are appropriate for their aptitude).

Sowell sticks to facts, stays above the fray by focusing on the big picture rather than getting absorbed in the latest culture wars. His main criticism of those holding other views is that they don't back up their arguments with data, but simply assert that they are right. At the same time, Sowell is humble and points out at times that a data source he has is the best he could come up with, but ideally there might be broader ways to prove or disprove his point.

The books is a treasure in many ways, not least because this young 93 year young scholar has done it again: write a refreshing, fact driven book poking holes through establishment views.

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caught in his own echo chamber

Revisado: 08-15-23

I stumbled across "the Death of Expertise" after it was referenced in another book I read. The theme "the death of expertise" was intriguing, so listened on when Tom Nichols appeared to give more of a rant than analysis. He made several good points, but then got confusing, contradicting himself. And as he complains of echo chambers, it appeared that he was stuck in his own. He wrote he had a twitter account, so I looked him up. To my surprise, I'm blocked by him. So I gather my paths have crossed before. And I didn't have to scroll down his timeline for long (in an alternate account that's not blocked) to see further contradictions: in his book, he states MSNBC is perceived as the least credible network and that he has regretted to at times in his past when it would have been more prudent not to lend his voice. Well, he appears to be an MSNBC contributor as I write this review. The picture appears to make more sense now.

Early in the book, he writes that an expert worthy of the name does not take political sides ("experts must be dispassionate"). That appears like a principled, albeit impractical approach as politics is encroaching ever more areas.

He laments the lack of education in the US. Nothing particularly new, but he suggests that only those that have "learned the scientific process" are worthy of being listened to (PhDs). Combining the concepts, it appeared as he won't be happy unless we are all PhDs. Late in the book, he qualifies this in discussing that managers (presumably without PhD) should rely on experts. How one ought to trust such managers isn't exactly clear, although for government, he explains the benefits of a republic versus democracy (parts of the book make a lot of sense, all the more of a pity he doesn't realize he jumps to conclusions without following the self prescribed scientific process elsewhere).

He eludes to what can go wrong when experts go wrong, but sidesteps the question what happens in academia when the peers no longer have a range of views, but promote political dogma.

While all about the scientific process, he is skipping that in jumping to conclusions. Aside from us being under-educated and not being interested in world affairs, he blames prosperity: "too much of a good thing" -- that's where he jumps into the ranting portion.

By all means, I share the concern that we merely veer towards the information we want to hear. But is a PhD the answer? Is eradicating prosperity the answer? Nichols sidesteps this question by suggesting experts just provide the facts, others must make the decisions.

Except, we have to work with what we got. Consumers may not be well informed, but is that the root of all evil? And is the only way to fix it to educate more people? We need to find modern solutions that are practical.

In Nichols' world, an administrative state filled with experts is what we should strive for. Except, looking at the covid response as an example, I would think many on both sides of the debate agree that there was a failure of the administrative state (although we might disagree on the details). I mention this because the root causes of those failures are not due to an uneducated public. We must look broader to tackle problems.

Nichols suggests that misinformation on the internet is "impossible to correct" -- that's overly simplistic. By all means, FB and others have failed with fact checkers that are themselves biased. But that doesn't mean we can't find a way to wade constructively through all the information that's out there -- Twitter's community notes are but an example of a step in the right direction. Nichols, in contrast, merely laments that fact checkers are "shoveling against the tide".

He suggests major news organizations are worthy sources, praises journalism and scoffs at bloggers. Except, we've always had good and bad journalists. Indeed, one thing I noticed in the financial crisis of 2008 was that over the months, the reporting got better as journalists learned more about the subject and outlets decided to invest in talent. He's right that a lot of bloggers publish junk, and I see this in my field as much as anywhere. But ranting about it doesn't fix the issue.

He says we should trust doctors, but not online medical diagnosis. Sure, there's junk out there, but that doesn't mean that an informed patient cannot be helpful. Indeed, anyone who has a more complex health situation will likely agree that if you are your own advocate (or have a friend/family member be able to do this on your behalf), you get better outcomes.

In the "old days" when there were a few experts and the uneducated not empowered, I allege progress was slower than in today's world where we all have an opinion. Sure, it can be nauseating when the uninformed bark nonsense. Sure, it can be disruptive to society that's not used to it. Such disruption could even lead to war. IMHO, we would be far better off assessing how we can best manage the new technologies out there rather than advocating turning back the clock and ranting about all the bad that comes from it.

Okay, so maybe whatever interaction we've previously had may well have warranted him blocking me.

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What would Milton Friendman say?

Revisado: 03-22-23

McCormick's mission is to show a path to revive the American spirit, emphasizing it takes leadership providing a vision (think Ronald Reagan). He dives into what he calls talent strategy (encompassing education and immigration strategy), technological leadership (encouraging public private partnerships to promote innovation) and data leadership (pointing to the importance of data geopolitically, but also domestically with regard to issues ranging from privacy and freedom of speech). He's giving detailed suggestions on how to reform failing government institutions and strengthen national defense.

First and foremost, thanks to David McCormick for stimulating a discussion on the urgency to give the public a vision to unleash America’s potential. The book is a worthy read regardless on whether you agree with the numerous specific policy suggestions. In that spirit, I would like to challenge Mr. McCormick to iron out what I consider structural pitfalls in his proposals. My critique below is by no means a discouragement to read the book, quite the contrary - if it helps to stimulate a discussion, it is a winner.

McCormick recognizes risks in his proposals, but then dismisses them, in part due to the urgency of the issues and because, with the right leadership, he says he can succeed. However, unlike in a business where new generations of leaderships tend to pull in the same direction, when it comes to politics, you want to build institutions that survive when "the other side" takes over. To create long lasting reform, I would very much encourage Mr. McCormick to surround himself with more people that play devil's advocate. Let me correct that: I would like to encourage Mr. McCormick to embed the devil's advocate into the very design of his policy proposals to better consider unintended consequences.

An example: McCormick discusses his ideas of public private partnerships, suggesting we should build on the principles of Operation Warp Speed to promote America's leadership in technology; he quotes H.R. McMaster, who asked him during an interview: “What would [free market godfather] Milton Friedman say?” McCormick shrugs it off, suggesting the times call for more activist leadership. Later in the book, he quotes Friedman, who said "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." Yet despite being aware of these pitfalls, he doesn't appear to notice that when he calls for such programs to evolve over time, he's putting institutional seeds in place for a mushrooming bureaucracy, something he rails against. It may not be easy to square the circle on this and several other of his ideas, but since his policy proposals are very specific, I challenge him to try harder. A key feature of Operation Warp Speed (and Mr. McCormick says as much) was that the project had an expiration date. I gather running projects in parallel, each with expiration dates for each sub-projects might be one way to try to square the circle on this one.

Not surprisingly, McCormick criticizes the Build Back Better Act as favoring a political agenda. A question I would like to encourage him to address: how do you design a public private partnership regime where you minimize the risk that it is abused for political agendas when the other party takes over? We need more substance on the blueprint of best practices and guard rails.

Related, Mc. McCormick recognizes the risk of cronyism on some of his proposals; I wish he would have dived into this in more detail. Amongst others, when government plays favors to certain industries (or sanctions certain goods), donations to politicians will rise.

McCormick gives excellent food for thought on the rigidity of some institutions, notably also the National Security Council, and how re-organizing them to take into account the broadening of what national security means could make them more effective. His enthusiasm for reform, however, also includes the building of numerous new bureaucracies. I won't pick a bone with the specifics, but on this topic, too, would encourage Mr. McCormick to spend more time thinking about how to put guardrails in place to have minimal impact on small business (new bureaucracies tend to hurt small business the most) while minimizing unintended consequences (e.g. cronyism). We love to blame political leaders for failings of government institutions, especially when 'the other side' is in power; in reality, failing of government institutions is in no small part a question of design of these institutions.

Here's an example where more analysis would have been helpful: McCormick lists two approaches on managing exports of sensitive technology, although you shall be excused to miss the first of these when you read his book: companies that engage in certain activities internationally should not be eligible to participate in, for example, the public private partnerships. The other approach he mentions is a board that approves exports to certain countries (a few) of certain technologies (many). An approval process of course increases barriers to entry (bad for small business), might push certain technology developments overseas; and invites a growing bureaucracy. He shrugs off these concerns, but that's too easy; take public key cryptography, the key for secure transactions over the internet - exports were severely restricted until 1996 and there was a real risk the US was falling behind as developments took place elsewhere (or take today's uncertainty over blockchain technology that's pushing much development abroad). More relevant on the big picture: how about exploring in more detail an approach that could safeguard national security while not imposing undue burden. For example, he could build on his initial concept where businesses that don't adhere to the standards he proposes are restricted in participating in public contracts; this would impose compliance on big business without imposing undue burden on small business.

On that note, McCormick mentions that he's advocated to get more voices into the room. I would encourage him to take this a step further, especially when it comes to business interests: specifically consider the interests of small business when devising policy. And to address the Milton Friedman question, include economists from the Chicago school. Not just for show, but make them an integral part of policy development.

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Important perspective

Revisado: 11-27-22

Mike Pence’s book is important. No matter what your political conviction, I trust you’ll have issues with at least part of what he writes, be that because you disagree with Pence politically; be that because he leaves out details you may deem important on events you vividly remember; be that because Pence’s personality is just different from how you would approach some issues. I had issues with parts of what he wrote, but my ‘issues’ are really irrelevant as your experience reading it is almost certainly is going to be different. You don’t read this book to feel good, you read it because it’s an important historical record, it’s an important perspective. The book helps round out the many perspectives you’ve undoubtedly been exposed to.

Pence considers his role and action in a constitutional context; he also believes form and symbolism matter. Some examples:
* Pence said the people elected Trump as President; his role was to provide his role in private, not have public arguments with him. He gives many examples of how he has done so.
* Pence explains how his role is very limited in certifying Presidential elections. It does include following the process to have a debate about validly submitted objections.
* Pence explains why it was inappropriate for him to support invoking the 25th amendment after January 6.

Pence cares a great deal about precedent that could be set through his action. Take his public statements after publishing the book that he would refuse testifying in front of the Jan 6 hearings in the house. He indicated that doing so would violate the separation of powers and that, instead, he wrote the book. Before you judge, read the book. Through it, we obtain a far more detailed account of his interactions with Trump through Pence’s lens than we could have ever obtained through public hearings. Are there things he didn’t write? Possibly, but there’s no reason to believe that he would have said those things in a public hearing, either.

Net, aside from being an important piece for history, I believe Pence’s book is part of an important healing process.

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Brilliant, including the narration

Revisado: 10-28-22

Discovered Homage to Catalonia after Marc Andreessen published a list of "Interesting books on culture and society". As others have pointed out, this book provides fantastic context to Orwell's later writings. Read 1984 & Animal farm first (at least one of them). And of course it's an incredibly interesting look into an aspect of history that few of us know much about.

Regarding the narration: it's brilliant. Those who don't like it, your loss. Listen to the book, have an open mind as to how the narration adds character and value, judge for yourself.

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Incredibly important. Incredibly depressing.

Revisado: 08-20-21

Cogan provides historic context to how entitlements have evolved, notably he dives into the details of how the dynamics in Congress have almost consistently added new and enhanced existing entitlements.

Two thirds through the book, I was extremely depressed. Madison's reading of the Constitution has been trashed in favor of a Hamiltonian dystopia in the making - no, Cogan doesn't say that, but forgive me for reading that into the narrative.

The few exceptions to the ever expanding entitlements appear to only prove the rule. I was able to get out of my dystopian mindset when I read Cogan's coverage of the 1996 entitlement reform (the personal responsibility and work opportunity and reconciliation act), showing that true reform is possible.

Cogan writes that this is a history book rather than a guide on how to fix the entitlement system. I appreciated the constructive high level thoughts he had on pitfalls policy makers want to consider to make fiscal deficits sustainable.

I would like to thank John Cogan for writing this incredibly important book. It is an absolute must read for any politician. For us mere mortals, I found it most informative; I encourage anyone interested in sustainable government finances to read it.

Cogan may be a bit naive in his pep talk at the very end; that said, we need the naive optimism to have good people working on solutions to the incredibly challenging questions posed in the book.

A brief comment on those feeling entitled to a better audio for the few bucks you paid for the audiobook. The way I look at it, for a few bucks, I gained insight into the wealth of knowledge of Mr. Cogan. It's a dry topic, and I'll be glad to pay anyone else $20 to do a better recording. In the meantime, the recording is just fine, don't let that stop you from listening.

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Be curious, not furious

Revisado: 02-20-21

Gates deserves credit for aiming to reach a broad audience to further the goal of mitigating a climate disaster. He's the first to point out he's an imperfect messenger; with one petty exception that I'll discuss below, I kept an open mind. I appreciated Gates' insights and learned a few things. That said, such a vast undertaking in an easy to read book is bound to have shortcomings; Gates urges us to focus more on the positives, realizing he can't make everyone happy. So let me try to phrase my criticism below constructively. Before I head into the criticism, Wheaton does a great job reading the book. Also, the book is inspiring - which I gather is the whole point of it. Personally, as I was listening, I had an idea that could be useful in advancing the cause, if only by a tiny bit, and be reasonably easy to implement; I'll mention it at the end. If others are inspired and take on tasks, small and large, the book was worth writing.

While Gates had a small business startup that serves small business, he quickly grew it into a big business. His foundation interacts with governments. While that is helpful in understanding complexities on a global level, we must make sure we don't lose sight of the needs of small business if we want his policy ideas to work. He proposes an array of policies and incentives. We must remember that red tape - which is the ugly cousin of policy - increases not only cost, but also barrier to entry, it stifles innovation. The US has a more dynamic economy than Europe because it is less regulated. The shale revolution that lead the US to energy independence came about because of it; you may think shale is part of the problem, and to an extent it is, but Gates rightfully points out that some of the technologies developed for it may well be part of the solution. I'm not arguing we don't need government policy. But what we need is to have as many stakeholders as possible on the table. When Gates proposes labeling of goods according to the carbon footprint, we all get that in theory this may be a very helpful stepping stone. But how do we implement that without driving smaller suppliers out of business?

Gates mentions a carbon tax and/or cap and trade as a crucial part of providing "incentives". The theory of this clear: tax carbons, provide incentives to get fewer of them. Gates almost entirely sidesteps the political dimension of this, presumably in part because, well, he doesn't want to be too political. But we must tackle the political dimension if this isn't supposed to be yet another book that will make those agreeing with Gates feel good, but have rather limited impact. It is crucial to build broad/bipartisan support on any policy for many reasons Gates references, but he leaves it up to the reader to connect the dots: If policy is passed, who stops the next government to reverse it? In an age of hyper-partisanship it's not easy. A carbon tax is one of the few ways government can raise large amounts of money; understandably, those opposing it suggest it gives government a license to spend, to build ever larger governments. Even if you don't agree to this, that's how many people think. We must square this circle; if we can, many of the other challenges presented in the book become solvable. That's because an economy adjusts to "incentives" and the moment you start taxing carbon, people will find ways to use less of it; the less you micro-manage it, the more innovation will strive. Alas, the taxing part is a huge deal.

Gates mentions international trade agreements may need to be renegotiated if we want to make sure stuff we import is also to some sort of "incentive" (carbon penalty) to be less carbon intensive. Anyone who has followed trade negotiations knows these are complex topics. I wish Gates had spent a little more time on this subject. I don't recall him mentioning once that the very foundation of trade, WTO, needs to be rethought. If the US were to impose import tariffs based on carbon, it would likely violate WTO rules; retaliatory tariffs would be imposed, everyone loses (unless one has the attitude that less trade is better; for purposes of this review, let's agree with Gates' premise that global growth is a good thing, we need to figure out how to do this without wrecking the planet). Gates sounds almost Trumpian by suggesting if you want to trade with us, you've got to play by our rules on carbon; it may need someone like a green Trump to break and rebuild the WTO. Try to square that circle with the aforementioned call for bipartisanship. Trade is immensely important.

Let me wrap this up by mentioning a personal idea - not in the belief that this will solve the climate crisis, but if everyone is motivated to share an idea, it increases the odds really good ones make it to the market: let's encourage weather apps to not only show sun, clouds, rain, wind, but also metrics on the carbon footprint of energy consumption for the local community based on time of day. I'm writing this from California where energy used during peak hours turns from green to brown. Most in California have heard calls to take this into account when they run an appliance, but if this was available on your favorite weather app, I would think there would not only be greater awareness, but usage patterns would also change. Companies like Google should be able to estimate such data already based on a variety of sources, then re-publish them in a standard format, so that apps can tap into them. If the idea takes off, there can be push to provide more standardized data by utility companies, making the data a firm like Google republishes more accurate/meaningful. And once an API is built, this isn't just useful for consumers on their weather app, but can help industrial use. In addition to consumers, many businesses pay electricity rates based on time of day. There's really little reason why this can't be more refined - I'm not suggesting different pricing based on each minute of the day, but if businesses had access to an API that suggested when exactly the energy is greenest, they can adjust their usage. Not all businesses, of course. My personal experience is with a well pump that feeds water into storage tanks; the water is used to irrigate agricultural land. The pump used to run whenever the water tank level fell below a threshold. A while ago, I added a $5 chip with simple programming; the pump now gives priority to the off hours, unless water tank levels fall below a certain threshold (okay, that sensor was more than $5); it would be simple enough to tap into an API that prioritizes based on how green the energy is off the grid. Such approaches have further benefits; in my example, because we added sensors, we learned about water leaks at times weeks earlier than we would have otherwise, further saving not just water, but the need to run the water pump. I mention this example not because I think my 15hp water pump will save the planet, but to illustrate that simple ideas could have a wide range of applications, and those add up.

I gave this review the title 'be curious, not furious' because a undertaking such as Gates' gives plenty of reasons to disagree with specifics - I have several as I read the book. However, I agree with Gates that we should focus on where we agree, and find ways to execute those ideas.

p.s.: as mentioned in the beginning, I can't help but raise one criticism; in the introduction, Gates references that we might have to limit access to power to only essential services during an emergency. The reference to 'essential' in my humble opinion is unfortunate. He likely wrote it before covid. I couldn't help but cringe, as it suggests Gates may not be able to relate to the tremendous hardship imposed on so many during the pandemic as they weren't considered essential workers. I trust Gates meant well, but as the pandemic showed, who and what is essential is in the eye of politicians that appear to rule on an ad hoc basis rather than a well thought out master plan in which many stakeholders were on the table.

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Bless Your Heart

Revisado: 11-14-19

Nikki introduces herself to a broader audience. She has a message of inclusion, rejecting labels. She explains that the President calls the shots, and - as a cabinet member - if one disagrees, one speaks up or leaves, but must not undermine.

She provides context for policies she has championed. I would encourage anyone to read those, especially those who disagree. Not to convince them, but to see that it is possible a civil argument can be made about important issues.

Nikki discusses the threat of rising socialism and the value of capitalism. I hope she'll expand on that in her future work, as those who are - in Nikki's words - 'misguided' may - imho - be excused for being confused. IMHO if we want to preserve capitalism, we need to cultivate it, explain what it is and what it is not.

She points out she first joined public office a Tea Party Republican; in this context, she briefly touches on fiscal discipline. In a recent interview since publishing the book, she also points to fiscal discipline as an important issue we should focus on. Beyond that, however, the book was rather light on fiscal issues. In that sense, the book focuses on the reader getting to know here, it's not a policy handbook.

On policy, while she provided in-depth arguments on topics such as moving the embassy to Jerusalem, or the US leaving the UN Human Rights Council (and the reader may agree or disagree), her arguments on some topics were a bit light (e.g.: India is a democracy, hence not possibly a threat to anyone which - with all due respect - failed to mention that Pakistan might take issue with that as it relates to Kashmir); and when she drops a sentence about China being a currency manipulator, it weakened the book as it appeared to try to score a political point, but lacking any sort of analysis.

Those criticisms should not deflect from the fact that this is an excellent book. It's excellent because it shows how someone can thrive in the Trump administration without agreeing to all ('not a wallflower'); it's excellent because it provides hope that there are politicians working hard to bring us together in a divisive world. And excellent because it allows us a glimpse at what may well be the next generation of politicians that may well influence our journey in years to come.

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