Links #8

Trillion dollar problems, trillion dollar solutions

The Highlights

1.

The CBO estimates that increased immigration to the U.S., if it continues for the next decade, would add $7 trillion to US GDP and $1 trillion to federal tax revenues. The projected net increase in the labor force over 10 years is estimated at 5.2 million people, or about 0.16% of the U.S. population per year.

Most problems are soluble in trillions of dollars, and finding ways to sustainably increase immigration to the U.S. remains important.

The thing is, the current wave of immigration is unlikely to last due to political backlash. See Alexander Berger’s thoughts here emphasizing sustainable ways to boost immigration. In general, I suspect that voters perceiving that they have more control over immigration decisions would make them more open to different reforms.

2.

Here’s a problem that might be soluble in billions of dollars:

• The paper The cost of stratospheric aerosol injection through 2100 estimates that it would cost $18 billion/year to abate 1 degree C of warming.

• This metaculus forecast projects 2.4 degrees of warming by year 2100 (note the different baselines).

• NASA estimates that we’ve seen roughly 1.2 degrees of warming since 1970.

So, we’re expecting to see an additional 1.2 degrees of warming by 2100. How much would it cost to offset that warming forever? Roughly $432 billion at a 5% discount rate.

That’s … an extremely reasonable number. If only the U.S. paid, that comes out to $5.45/month per person, less than the cost of Netflix (with ads lol).

So, have I solved climate change?

EDIT: here’s a nice piece and thread by Tomas Pueyo on the topic.

3.

In this review Lyman Stone suggests that it might cost $5.3K per child per year in pro-natal incentives to achieve replacement fertility, with payments continuing until age 18. There are currently 3.66 million births per year which needs to get to 4.43 million to achieve replacement fertility. That comes out to $283 billion per year at a 5% discount rate.

I see this as more of an upper bound on the cost of pronatal policy, since other policies can probably boost fertility for less money.

I also think the true fertility gap is smaller than is typically assumed. I was also pointed to some work that points out the difference between Total Fertility Rate (TFR) and Cohort Fertility Rate (CFR). TFR is a more real-time, volatile measure while CFR takes longer to measure but is more stable over time. Whether a population grows or shrinks depends on CFR, not TFR.

The rapid fall in TFR in recent decades comes in part from two fortuitous trends:

1. A decline in teen pregnancy.

2. Women choosing to delay childbearing in order to further their careers.

If all women suddenly began to delay childbearing but had the same number of children long-term, TFR would fall while cohort fertility would stay the same.

This article charts children per woman by cohort and age:

The most recent cohorts are the brown and purple lines. Fertility looks lower for these cohorts, but might they catch up? Are women simply delaying childbearing rather than forgoing it entirely? The end of the brown line looks like it could reach the other cohorts. Perhaps the real trend is a sharpening s-curve over time, with later cohorts waiting later to have kids while only having slightly fewer overall.

The recent paper “Is US Fertility now Below Replacement? Evidence from Period vs. Cohort Trends” projects recent data on cohort fertility and suggests that the youngest generation may still be below replacement, but to me, the gap looks smaller than TFR would suggest.

I’ve noticed pro-natal policy folks turn to more negative messaging recently, but I don’t think that scaremongering is appropriate. Overall, the global fertility shortage seems solvable depending on how early and effectively we address it and I think economies will adapt somewhat.

So I hope they decide to emphasize concrete solutions and grassroots advocacy over social-media driven hysteria; doomerism has had a corrosive effect on climate change advocacy and I would hate to see something similar happen here.

Perhaps its a good time to re-read The Toxicoplasma of Rage.

Other fertility links:

The economics of fertility: a new era

Regan Arntz-Gray asks “How much for a marginal baby?” using a state-funded egg freezing program, finding that it would cost $190K per baby and solve only about 10% of the U.S. fertility deficit.

Has the Rise of Work-from-Home Reduced the Motherhood Penalty in the Labor Market? It seems that it has, which is good. Another way that technology can be pro-natal.

Everything else

Radical progress without Scary AI

Opening the AI black box: program synthesis via mechanistic interpretability

Memristors for Analog AI Chips

$73 of materials and 3D printed parts combined with a Go Pro enables anyone to generate training data for robots in any location using the Universal Manipulation Interface. This team has produced a lot of great stuff recently. How soon before robots can learn with video taken from a GoPro on someone’s head?

Video of robots created by Eric Jiang’s company moving autonomously in real time using only cameras as input. Looks like science fiction come to life.

Humanity's Next Leap

AR and the Future of Language

The Power of the Earth is a nice piece on enhanced geothermal. Has a good discussion of mining the brine that comes from these systems, which may be another benefit.

Welding method drastically cuts time to make mini nuclear reactors

Destruction of Nuclear Bombs Using Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Beam

Towards an Artificial Carbohydrates Supply on Earth