I got this newsletter today. It really highlights the selection bias. I wonder what inventions have had greater positive impacts that are left out of your article. There is certainly something to the idea that if you try and make a rocket to explore the universe someone will use it as a missile. Especially if it is in a country run by Nazi’s and other authoritarians.
"The negative examples always spread farther and faster than the positive examples. In a world this big, you'll find at least one negative example every day.
Don't let the existence of a bad example ruin your faith in the world. Good news is always quieter than bad news. Good behavior rarely stirs the pot or ignites emotion.
But no matter. We need role models all the same. Continue living the best way you know how."- James Clear
Who should my role models be? Who is using AI and the other great innovations of my day for good? How can I join them?
Truman did not see the Szilard petition before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Szilard presented it to the Secretary of State at the time, James Byrnes, who did not like it and did not pass it on to the President.
It is surprisingly unclear who made the decision to bomb Japanese cities and when. There is no written order signed by Truman to drop them. Alex Wellerstein makes a case that I find compelling that he was under the mistaken impression that the bombs would target military objectives, not city centers. And additionally, he did not know a second bomb was ready to be dropped on Nagasaki, and may have prevented the bombing if he knew.
Truman didn't know about the bomb until after Roosevelt's death, and he did not have good information on or control over the Manhattan Project. He moved to assert presidential control over the weapon quickly after the bombing, and is largely responsible for the notion today that the President has sole and particular control over nukes. He accepted responsibility for the bombing because that was his approach to leadership, but after his presidency he was very anti-nuclear weapons.
Thanks, I actually listened to a podcast with Wellerstein about that! I thought it seemed pretty credible, though I don't really know enough about the subject to know if it should be considered definitive. From the point of view of telling Szilard's story, I don't think it matters too much who made the decision, unless the sentiment was never encountered by any decision-makers.
What I found surprising about the Szilard petition / Franck report is that (contrary to my earlier impressions), they do *not* say that there should be a demonstration on a military target. Their biggest concern actually seems to be that once nuclear weapons are demonstrated, it is inevitable that they would spread around the world.
Still, what I say should be actually correct, not just correct "in spirit". I can't find firm evidence that the Truman read Franck report, though a committee he appointed definitely did. And I do think Truman bears significant responsibility for the people the delegates his decisions to. I'm leaning towards revising that statement, but not sure how to hit the right note. I suppose I could just say "This recommendation was not adopted." Does that strike you as fair?
Yeah I agree that the point is valid! Both the rewording here or Damian's are good, Szilard definitely faced that pushback from Byrnes and from the leadership of the Manhattan Project/ the Interim Committee.
I actually haven't read the book either, but I listened to him describe his thesis on Hardcore History Addendum at the same time I was finishing "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" (An amazing, prize winning history of the Manhattan Project from 1987, where Szilard is kinda the main character). That book made many of the same observations that Wellerstein did about the period between Roosevelt's death and , and the the theory that Truman didn't really understand what was happening explains a lot. He would have agreed that he still bears responsibility for the bombings. That phrasing just struck me because it's a pet topic of mine, and I think the bureaucratic details are more interesting than the common narrative that Truman made some calculation the Japanese civilian casualties were worth it to shorten the war.
I’m brought to tears reading Kalashnikov’s reflections. May he rest in peace.
But evil is not subsiding. Good and evil live side by side, they conflict, and, what is most frightening, they make peace with each other in people’s hearts.
Good and evil make peace with each other in people’s hearts. Kalashnikovs in their hands.
I guess the most obvious pattern is the massive amounts of good done by such developments massively outweighing their use in war. Humanity has been very fortunate that forces opposed to technological progress have always failed.
I fly hobby rockets in the US. My highest flight is just a little over a mile. Looking to crack 10,000 feet sometime soon. You can just do things.
However, the hobby is currently being constrained over the availability of ammonium perchlorate propellant (usually available for purchasers who certify with one of a couple of US sanctioning organizations). Much of the North American production is going to backfill munitions sent to Ukraine and others used elsewhere.
Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant (APCP), the same propellant used in the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters (and in Artemis' SRBs - don't launch when you can see your breath!), is solid.
In hobby rocketry, the most common propellants are black powder (same as used in the common Estes rockets sold in hobby shops throughout the US) and APCP, with some very marginal use of hybrid propellants (not super familiar, but I believe they use a rubber reaction mass and perhaps a nitrous oxide oxidizer. I could be super wrong about that).
Liquid fuel is generally frowned upon in hobby rocketry, due to the danger of working with the propellants (they don't just go 'boom', they can also give you low-temperature burns, be chemically dangerous, lots of stuff...). There are a few advanced hobbyists working with them, but they're likely doing so without insurance coverage. Our club has turned down a few university requests to just test liquid-fuel motors on our fields, due to insurance problems and aversion to losing the support of the landowners whose fields we borrow. A field is precious near our major metro out east. You lose your field and it could be years to replace it.
So what do we do? We use what fuel is in the pipeline: APCP that is occasionally fit to purpose, but sometimes fit for smaller airframes, so we fly smaller rockets. Sometimes the only available fuel that fits an airframe is of too high an impulse to fly at the current field - the flight would break the FAA-specified ceiling, or in a lesser problem, fly too high for conditions or confident recovery. Trees. Forest. Corn. We're out east, I said.
Another option is to fly smaller rockets on black powder motors. This is still fun for some of us (I like it now and again), but for others, black powder is "kid stuff". Once the kids are off at school, many just want to fly high power, and black powder is generally not that.
There is a charm to building scale black powder models - a small model of a noted military or space race rocket that is finely detailed gets a lot of admiration. And most of us don't build for the shelf: we wanna fly 'em.
Lastly, as the hobby is dependent upon weather, we often can't fly when we'd like, and the general rule is, if you can't fly, you can build or repair (and there's _always_ something to build, something to repair. The build pile looks like firewood).
There's a bunch more - contest flying, scale space modeling, r/c rocket gliders... check out https://nar.org/ or https://tripoli.org/ for info if interested.
AI seems like it sticks out on this list in a few ways, but most strikingly- a billion people have already used or interacted with it in some way, and only now is it making the news for the war-related reasons. All the others were barely known outside their inventor’s circle before the military use started
I think airplanes, dynomite and rockets were all pretty well-known. (Though not used by a billion people, and I certainly agree that all of these cases are disanalogies to AI, and each other, in many ways.)
Incidentally, reading up on Santos=Dumont's biography (I didn't know anything about his advocacy or the tragedies of his later life), I was delighted to see that the only person he ever let fly one of his airships was a 19-year-old woman he'd just met--Aida de Acosta-- that she flew it from Paris to a polo match in the suburbs while he yelled instructions from his bicycle below; she landed, they watched the match for a while, then she flew the airship BACK.
This was 6 months before the Wright Brothers' first flight.
I got this newsletter today. It really highlights the selection bias. I wonder what inventions have had greater positive impacts that are left out of your article. There is certainly something to the idea that if you try and make a rocket to explore the universe someone will use it as a missile. Especially if it is in a country run by Nazi’s and other authoritarians.
"The negative examples always spread farther and faster than the positive examples. In a world this big, you'll find at least one negative example every day.
Don't let the existence of a bad example ruin your faith in the world. Good news is always quieter than bad news. Good behavior rarely stirs the pot or ignites emotion.
But no matter. We need role models all the same. Continue living the best way you know how."- James Clear
Who should my role models be? Who is using AI and the other great innovations of my day for good? How can I join them?
Truman did not see the Szilard petition before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Szilard presented it to the Secretary of State at the time, James Byrnes, who did not like it and did not pass it on to the President.
It is surprisingly unclear who made the decision to bomb Japanese cities and when. There is no written order signed by Truman to drop them. Alex Wellerstein makes a case that I find compelling that he was under the mistaken impression that the bombs would target military objectives, not city centers. And additionally, he did not know a second bomb was ready to be dropped on Nagasaki, and may have prevented the bombing if he knew.
Truman didn't know about the bomb until after Roosevelt's death, and he did not have good information on or control over the Manhattan Project. He moved to assert presidential control over the weapon quickly after the bombing, and is largely responsible for the notion today that the President has sole and particular control over nukes. He accepted responsibility for the bombing because that was his approach to leadership, but after his presidency he was very anti-nuclear weapons.
https://alexwellerstein.com/writing/books/the-most-awful-responsibility/
Thanks, I actually listened to a podcast with Wellerstein about that! I thought it seemed pretty credible, though I don't really know enough about the subject to know if it should be considered definitive. From the point of view of telling Szilard's story, I don't think it matters too much who made the decision, unless the sentiment was never encountered by any decision-makers.
What I found surprising about the Szilard petition / Franck report is that (contrary to my earlier impressions), they do *not* say that there should be a demonstration on a military target. Their biggest concern actually seems to be that once nuclear weapons are demonstrated, it is inevitable that they would spread around the world.
Still, what I say should be actually correct, not just correct "in spirit". I can't find firm evidence that the Truman read Franck report, though a committee he appointed definitely did. And I do think Truman bears significant responsibility for the people the delegates his decisions to. I'm leaning towards revising that statement, but not sure how to hit the right note. I suppose I could just say "This recommendation was not adopted." Does that strike you as fair?
Yeah I agree that the point is valid! Both the rewording here or Damian's are good, Szilard definitely faced that pushback from Byrnes and from the leadership of the Manhattan Project/ the Interim Committee.
I actually haven't read the book either, but I listened to him describe his thesis on Hardcore History Addendum at the same time I was finishing "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" (An amazing, prize winning history of the Manhattan Project from 1987, where Szilard is kinda the main character). That book made many of the same observations that Wellerstein did about the period between Roosevelt's death and , and the the theory that Truman didn't really understand what was happening explains a lot. He would have agreed that he still bears responsibility for the bombings. That phrasing just struck me because it's a pet topic of mine, and I think the bureaucratic details are more interesting than the common narrative that Truman made some calculation the Japanese civilian casualties were worth it to shorten the war.
Perhaps just "the Truman administration did not adopt this recommendation"?
That's perfect, thanks.
I’m brought to tears reading Kalashnikov’s reflections. May he rest in peace.
But evil is not subsiding. Good and evil live side by side, they conflict, and, what is most frightening, they make peace with each other in people’s hearts.
Good and evil make peace with each other in people’s hearts. Kalashnikovs in their hands.
I guess the most obvious pattern is the massive amounts of good done by such developments massively outweighing their use in war. Humanity has been very fortunate that forces opposed to technological progress have always failed.
I fly hobby rockets in the US. My highest flight is just a little over a mile. Looking to crack 10,000 feet sometime soon. You can just do things.
However, the hobby is currently being constrained over the availability of ammonium perchlorate propellant (usually available for purchasers who certify with one of a couple of US sanctioning organizations). Much of the North American production is going to backfill munitions sent to Ukraine and others used elsewhere.
I'm beginning to see a pattern.
That is amazing. Does the fact that you're (not) using ammonium perchlorate mean that you focus on solid-fuel rockets?
Oblig. "What If"
https://what-if.xkcd.com/24/
Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant (APCP), the same propellant used in the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters (and in Artemis' SRBs - don't launch when you can see your breath!), is solid.
In hobby rocketry, the most common propellants are black powder (same as used in the common Estes rockets sold in hobby shops throughout the US) and APCP, with some very marginal use of hybrid propellants (not super familiar, but I believe they use a rubber reaction mass and perhaps a nitrous oxide oxidizer. I could be super wrong about that).
Liquid fuel is generally frowned upon in hobby rocketry, due to the danger of working with the propellants (they don't just go 'boom', they can also give you low-temperature burns, be chemically dangerous, lots of stuff...). There are a few advanced hobbyists working with them, but they're likely doing so without insurance coverage. Our club has turned down a few university requests to just test liquid-fuel motors on our fields, due to insurance problems and aversion to losing the support of the landowners whose fields we borrow. A field is precious near our major metro out east. You lose your field and it could be years to replace it.
So what do we do? We use what fuel is in the pipeline: APCP that is occasionally fit to purpose, but sometimes fit for smaller airframes, so we fly smaller rockets. Sometimes the only available fuel that fits an airframe is of too high an impulse to fly at the current field - the flight would break the FAA-specified ceiling, or in a lesser problem, fly too high for conditions or confident recovery. Trees. Forest. Corn. We're out east, I said.
Another option is to fly smaller rockets on black powder motors. This is still fun for some of us (I like it now and again), but for others, black powder is "kid stuff". Once the kids are off at school, many just want to fly high power, and black powder is generally not that.
There is a charm to building scale black powder models - a small model of a noted military or space race rocket that is finely detailed gets a lot of admiration. And most of us don't build for the shelf: we wanna fly 'em.
Lastly, as the hobby is dependent upon weather, we often can't fly when we'd like, and the general rule is, if you can't fly, you can build or repair (and there's _always_ something to build, something to repair. The build pile looks like firewood).
There's a bunch more - contest flying, scale space modeling, r/c rocket gliders... check out https://nar.org/ or https://tripoli.org/ for info if interested.
AI seems like it sticks out on this list in a few ways, but most strikingly- a billion people have already used or interacted with it in some way, and only now is it making the news for the war-related reasons. All the others were barely known outside their inventor’s circle before the military use started
I think airplanes, dynomite and rockets were all pretty well-known. (Though not used by a billion people, and I certainly agree that all of these cases are disanalogies to AI, and each other, in many ways.)
I will never forgive you for ruining my ability to correctly spell dynomite.
Incidentally, reading up on Santos=Dumont's biography (I didn't know anything about his advocacy or the tragedies of his later life), I was delighted to see that the only person he ever let fly one of his airships was a 19-year-old woman he'd just met--Aida de Acosta-- that she flew it from Paris to a polo match in the suburbs while he yelled instructions from his bicycle below; she landed, they watched the match for a while, then she flew the airship BACK.
This was 6 months before the Wright Brothers' first flight.
And there's a PICTURE of this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Aida-1903.jpg). The world is just full of delightful things.
Thank you very much for sharing. Truly incredible - hard to believe.
I tell you what, after reading about these people, I can't help but feel a lot of affection for all of them. But Santos-Dumont most of all.
Is this about AI?
I feel like this is about AI.
It's about AI.
Explosive fact: the first dynamite plant was not in Golden Gate Park but Glen Canyon Park, until after one year of operations the plant blew up (of course) and they rebuilt west: https://www.foundsf.org/images/9/99/Plaque-First-Dynamite-Factory-in-Glen-Canyon_20180519_124034.jpg