A few weeks ago, seven political philosophers at my department, who regularly meet to discuss issues related to sustainable futures, met to discuss Hannah Ritchie’s book Not the End of the World. That book quickly appeared on the bestseller’s lists. For everyone who read her book, or is perhaps thinking about reading her book, here’s what we thought about it (which, regular readers of this blog will notice, is an example of Team Philosophy which we discussed here a while ago.)

Our review can be found below the fold.
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Editors of academic journals have been reporting that they find it increasingly hard to secure referees for papers that have been submitted to their journals. When I’ve been discussing this issue over the years with colleagues, I’ve heard a few remarks that made me wonder what our considerations are to decide whether or not to accept a review request. Clearly, there must be a content-wise fit: if one thinks the paper is outside one’s area of expertise, one should not accept the referee request. But then I have heard considerations such as “I decline because I have already refereed for this journal before”, or “I referee as many papers as I receive reports”, or “I referee 5 papers a year”. Are these valid reasons to decline?

Clearly, the answer cannot be that how much we choose to referee is purely a private affair. All academics would benefit if there would not be a shortage of referees, hence it cannot be a purely private affair. Yet the referee shortage takes the structure of a collective action problem. And we know that there are two principle ways to address collective action problems – either by having a collective decision maker (such as the government), which is not a solution available for this problem; or else by way of establishing a social norm.

Solving the referee crisis in academic peer review will require multiple measures, but when it comes to securing that enough people are willing to referee, I propose to discuss the number we should treat as the lower boundary of how much we should referee. Let’s call the number of reports a person writes for journals divided by the number of reports that person receives in response to their own paper submissions a person’s referee-ratio. I want to defend that the referee ratio should be at least 1.2. In other words, for every 4 reports we receive, we should write at least 5 (adjusted for the number of authors of a paper). [click to continue…]

From back when I was shooting film sometimes:

I posted this piece in RenewEconomy a couple of months ago. It didn’t convince the commenters then, and I don’t expect it to be any different here, but I’m putting it on the record anyway.

AI won’t use as much electricity as we are told, and it’s not a reason to slow transition to renewables

The recent rise of “generative AI” models has led to a lot of dire predictions about the associated requirements for energy. It has been estimated that AI will consume anything from 9 to 25 per cent of all US electricity by 2032.

But we have been here before. Predictions of this kind have been made ever since the emergence of the Internet as a central part of modern life, often tied to claims and counterclaims about the transition to renewable energy.

Back in 1999, Forbes magazine ran a piece headlined, Dig more coal — the PCs are coming. This article claimed that personal computers would use 50 per cent of US electricity within a decade. The unsubtle implication was that any attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions was doomed to failure

Of course, this prediction wasn’t borne out. Computing power has increased a thousand-fold since the turn of the century. But far from demanding more electricity personal computers have become more efficient with laptops mostly replacing large standalone boxes, and software improvements reducing waste.

A typical home computer now consumes around 30-60 watts when it is operating, less than a bar fridge or an incandescent light bulb.

The rise of large data centres and cloud computing produced another round of alarm. A US EPA report in 2007 predicted a doubling of demand every five years. Again, this number fed into a range of debates about renewable energy and climate change.

Yet throughout this period, the actual share of electricity use accounted for by the IT sector has hovered between 1 and 2 per cent, accounting for less than 1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, the unglamorous and largely disregarded business of making cement accounts for around 7 per cent of global emissions.

Will generative AI change this pattern? Not for quite a while. Although most business organizations now use AI for some purposes, it typically accounts for only 5 to 10 per cent of IT budgets.

Even if that share doubled or tripled the impact would be barely noticeable. Looking the other side of the market, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is bringing in around $3 billion a year in sales revenue, and has spent around $7 billion developing its model. Even if every penny of that was spent on electricity, the effect would be little more than a blip.

Of course, AI is growing rapidly. A tenfold increase in expenditure by 2030 isn’t out of the question. But that would only double total the total use of electricity in IT.

And, as in the past, this growth will be offset by continued increases in efficiency. Most of the increase could be fully offset if the world put an end to the incredible waste of electricity on cryptocurrency mining (currently 0.5 to 1 per cent of total world electricity consumption, and not normally counted in estimates of IT use).

If predictions of massive electricity use by the IT sector have been so consistently wrong for decades, why do they keep being made, and believed?

The simplest explanation, epitomised by the Forbes article from 1999, is that coal and gas producers want to claim that there is a continuing demand for their products, one that can’t be met by solar PV and wind. That explanation is certainly relevant today, as gas producers in particular seize on projections of growing demand to justify new plants.

At the other end of the policy spectrum, advocates of “degrowth” don’t want to concede that the explosive growth of the information economy is sustainable, unlike the industrial economy of the 20th century. The suggestion that electricity demand from AI will overwhelm attempts to decarbonise electricity supply supports the conclusion that we need to stop and reverse growth in all sectors of the economy.

Next there is the general free-floating concern about everything to with computers, which are both vitally necessary and mysterious to most of us. The rise of AI has heightened those concerns. But whereas no one can tell whether an AI apocalypse is on the way, or what it would entail, an electricity crisis is a much more comprehensible danger.

And finally, people just love a good story. The Y2K panic, supposedly based on the shortening of digits in dates used in computers, was obviously false (if it had been true, we would have seen widespread failures well before 1 January 2000).

But the appeal of the story was irresistible, at least in the English-speaking world, and billions of dollars were spent on problems that could have been dealt with using a “fix on failure” approach.

For what it’s worth, it seems likely that the AI boom is already reaching a plateau, and highly likely that such a plateau will be reached sooner or later. But when and if this happens, it won’t be because we have run out of electricity to feed the machines.

Update

The AI boom is also being used to justify talk, yet again, of a nuclear renaissance. All the big tech firms have made announcements of one kind or another about seeking nuclear power to run their data centres. And its true that the “always on” character of nuclear makes it a genuine example of the (otherwise mostly spurious) notion of “baseload demand”. But when you look at what Google, Meta and the others are actually doing, it amounts to around 1 GW apiece, the output of a single standard-sized reactor. That might bring a few retired reactors, like the one at Three Mile Island, back on line, but it’s unlikely to induce big new investments.

Ownership and control of social media platforms is a first-order concern for both domestic politics and international conflict. The most important battleground in the Russia-Ukraine war is elections in NATO member states.

And there, Russia is clearly winning. Trump, obviously, but yesterday saw the stunning success of formerly fringe right-wing candidate C?lin Georgescu. In an unimaginably large polling error, CG won 22% of the first-round vote (and thus made it into the runoff) after polling at 5% just months prior.

A prescient report by Bucharest think tank Export Forum released shortly before the election details the importance of TikTok in Romanian politics — the platform has 9 million users in a nation of roughly 16 million adults — and the impossibly sharp explosion of pro-CG content produced and consumed in the month before the election: “As of November 18, C?lin Georgescu had 92.8 million views, most of which were in last 2 months. By November 22 it had increased by 52 million views.”

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by Rutger Claassen and Ingrid Robeyns

Let’s establish an upper limit on the personal wealth any individual can possess. This is the core principle behind ‘limitarianism’. Limitarianism represents one of the more radical proposals in the debate on wealth inequality. Over the past few years, one of us has developed the philosophy of limitarianism (first in the academic realm, and then more recently also in the public sphere, as regular readers of this blog know). The proposal has since been endorsed, and in some cases further developed, by other scholars and writers, including Thomas Piketty and the Dutch journalist Sander Heijne.

Of course, not everyone likes the idea. One of the most important critiques on limitarianism is that it is unclear whether company owners can continue to hold on to their flourishing businesses in a limitarian world. Or no longer being able to receive exceptionally high pay for running these companies. Think, for example of the $46 billion compensation package Elon Musk received for serving as Tesla’s CEO.

Annemarie van Gaal, described as one of the most well-known businesswomen in the Netherlands and columnist for the influential Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, claims that with a wealth cap, there will no longer be any business activity:

“But anyone who is willing to take significant risks, endure immense stress, and sacrifice sleepless nights to apply their talent and perseverance in order to reach the top, should be given free reign. These people are the ones who create jobs and ensure that our country remains among the wealthiest in the world. (…). Would top entrepreneurs still be willing to sacrifice years of their lives, take countless risks, and endure hardship if they knew in advance that there’s a limit to their success? No. We will never become a happy society if we allow this.”

But is this correct? Can business owners remain owners of their business under limitarianism? And can their businesses thrive? This is an important question. Because even if there are strong moral arguments for limitarianism, they are not worth much if limitarianism destroys the economy. [click to continue…]

So in the last three years or so — since COVID, basically — Romania and Taiwan have both joined a very special club of countries.

There are not a lot of countries in this club. If you’re very generous, you could include perhaps a dozen or so. But to my way of thinking, there are only about eight. They include:

Ireland (pretty much the type specimen)
South Korea
Singapore
All three Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
Taiwan
Romania

There are some definitional issues. Romania, in particular, s a borderline case.  It only qualifies as… half a member, let’s say. Microstates are excluded; to join this club, you must have at least half a million people. In theory, you could argue for the list to include Australia, Israel, Slovenia, and even the United States, but I except them because reasons.  

Okay, so:  What is this club?

The answer is below the cut.  But first: take a moment, look at that list, think about it.  (Here’s a hint: remember what I do for a living.)  Try to come up with an answer, and then put it in the comments. I’ll be curious to see what people think.

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A few weeks ago, I drew up a flowchart to estimate the probability that Trump would establish a dictatorship in the US, which looked, at the time, like an even money bet.

We don’t need to speculate any more. Trump has announced the dictatorship, and there is no sign of effective resistance. The key elements so far include

• Extremists announced for all major positions, with a demand that they be recess appointments, not subject to Senate scrutiny
• A state of emergency from Day 1, with the use of the military against domestic opponents
• Mass deportations, initially of non-citizens and then of “denaturalised” legal immigrants
• A third term (bizarrely, the nervous laughter that greeted this led to it being reported as a joke).
• A comprehensive purge of the army, FBI and civil service

It’s clear that Trump will face no resistance from the Republican party. There’s an outside chance that the Supreme Court will constrain some measures, such as outright suppression of opposition media, but that won’t make much difference.

It’s possible that Trump will overreach in some way, such as carrying out his threat to execute political opponents before the ground is fully prepared. Or, his economic policies may prove so disastrous that even rigged elections can’t be won. But there is no good reason to expect this.

I can’t give any hopeful advice to Americans. The idea of defeating Trump at the next election is an illusion. Although elections may be conducted for some time, the outcome will be predetermined. Street protest might be tolerated, as long as it is harmless, but will be suppressed brutally if it threatens the regime. Legal action will go nowhere, given that the Supreme Court has already authorised any criminal action Trump might take as president.

The models to learn from are those of dissidents in places like China and the Soviet Union. They involve cautious cultivation of an alternative, ready for the opportunity when and if it comes.

The remaining islands of democracy will have some difficult choices to make. I’ll offer some thoughts on Australia, and others may have something to say about their own countries.

For Australia, the easy, and wrong, course of action will be to pretend that nothing has happened. But in reality, we are on our own. Trump is often described as “transactional”, but this carries the implication that having made a deal, he sticks to it. In reality, Trump reneges whenever it suits him, and sometimes just on a whim. If it suits Trump to drag us into a war with China, he will do it. Equally, if he can benefit from leaving us in the lurch, he will do that

Our correct course is to disengage slowly and focus on protecting ourselves. That means a return to the policy of balancing China and the US, now with the recognition that there is nothing to choose between the two in terms of democracy. We need to back out of AUKUS and focus on defending ourselves, with what Sam Roggeveen has called an “echidna” strategy – lots of anti-ship missiles, and the best air defences we can buy, from anyone willing to supply them.

I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on all this.

Note: I’d prefer not to have any post-mortems on what the Democrats did wrong. Any possible lessons won’t be relevant to the future. And a country where only a third of the population is willing to turn up and vote against dictatorship is headed for disaster sooner or later.

Kitchy and quasi-totalitarian ghastliness, USA (from 2008)

After Trump’s second election victory, lots of Americans are talking about emigrating, most commonly to Canada. This happens with every rightwing election win[1], but nothing ever comes of it. With the real prospect of indefinite Trumpist rule, the issues are more serious, but it seems unlikely that much will happen. But why not?

It’s fairly well known that Americans rarely emigrate. There are, for example, only about a million US citizens living in Canada at the moment. Conversely, there are around a million Canadians living in the US. These are surprisingly low numbers for contiguous countries with a common language (except for Quebec) and relatively straightforward[2] paths to migration.

A detailed illustration of a U.S. passport with the text ‘US Paort’ on the cover, lying on top of a Canadian flag background. The Canadian flag’s red and white colors with the maple leaf design are vibrant and easily recognizable behind the passport. The setting is simple, with the passport angled slightly to showcase the modified cover design, creating a contrast between the blue of the passport and the red and white of the flag.
As usual ChatGPT didn’t quite get the text right

More generally, it’s a common rightwing talking point that the USA is the country most commonly named as a desired place to migrate to. What’s less remarked is that Donald Trump’s expressed desire for more migrants from “places like Denmark” reflects underlying reality. Migration from other rich countries to the US is very limited. In 2022, about 300 000 people (excluding tourists) from Europe arrived in the US, and the majority of these were students, most of whom would probably return. And Europe includes a lot of poor countries.

There’s a lot more migration between other rich countries, including between other Anglospheric countries. For example, although Canada has about a 10th of the population of the US, there are about half as many Canadians in Australia (50 000) as Americans (100 000).

The conclusion I draw is that the US is very different from other, superficially similar countries, I’ve visited the US on lots of occasions and had a couple of extended stays totalling two years. But it still seems a very foreign place to me, much more so than New Zealand or the UK, where I’ve been less frequently. And I imagine the same is true, in reverse, for Americans abroad.

Looking at the recent election results, they are in part a reflection of global trends (anti-incumbent, anti-migrant etc). But the vote for Trump was substantially higher than for most of the far-right policies in other countries. I think (hope) that this reflects some specifically American factors.

The option of moving to Canada is, for most Americans, an illusion. They will have to sort out their problems at home, as best they can.

fn1. In the event of a Democratic victory, there aren’t a lot of options for rightwingers, even ignoring practical difficulties. Lots of them have nice things to say about Hungary, but I think only Rod Dreher has moved there. Same in spades for Russia.

fn2. Migration is never easy. But, excluding moves within the EU, Canada-US migration seems to be about as straightforward as anywhere. CUSMA (formerly NAFTA) makes it relatively easy to get work permits, and thereby make the contacts needed for employer sponsorship.

There’s been a a certain amount of negativity floating around lately. So, let’s talk about a toxic, venomous freak of nature and the parasite that afflicts it.

Biology warning, this gets slightly squicky. [click to continue…]