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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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Precisely, all of these things are ambitious goals and the devil is in the details. Does anyone trust that Trump can make them happen?

You should check out 'where's my flying car?', he makes a good case for why flying cars would be useful in letting people live much further from workplaces and reducing commuting time. He lays the blame on ridiculous, luddite regulatory systems for suppressing the technology. But he also goes off into all kinds of other tangents, it's not a well-structured book.

I think it's not just that they're ambitious goals with tricky details, it's also that I'm not even sure we want them, due to opportunity costs.

New cities: what's wrong with the current ones, and why can we expect the new ones to be better? I don't see why this wouldn't just be a big waste of resources.

Flying cars: What is wrong with the current system? Proliferation of private flying cars, if they can be made to work, seem like they could be pretty dangerous, both to the people in it, anyone else in the air, and the people on the ground. Is there a reason that wouldn't be true? I suppose also the numbers would have to be run on how much development costs vs. benefits could be expected to behave.

Rural industries: This will require some care as to what exactly "revitalize rural industries" means. If they are doing economically worse than they should because of government regulations or due to externalities, that's great. But if the market is the cause in an unbiased way, then aiding them is at the cost of better use that that money could be put to elsewhere in the country. Subsidies and similar seem dangerous.

Baby bonuses: this one might be worth it, but the numbers would have to be run.

Beautification campaign: the previous comment was good about there being a somewhat lesser value to ornateness now, although I agree it is uglier. But improving everything would be expensive, and I would imagine it would have to be done judiciously to be worth it. So I suppose here it is more clearly an example of the devil being in the details.

New cities could be a way to expand with new forms of government, and let people that have different political opinions from mainstream big cities see if their ideas work.

As the US spread West this type of city formation driven political change was crucial. It kept eastern US societies more stable as well since there was a place to send the misfits.

what's wrong with the current ones, and why can we expect the new ones to be better? I don't see why this wouldn't just be a big waste of resources.

Well there are all kinds of traffic problems with extending urban sprawl, if you want to build anything it costs you a lot of money digging through all these cables and pipes from hundreds of years. And there are many powerful nimbies. Far better to just make new cities with all the necessary infrastructure, insulation, have it all up to standard. Economies of scale in construction, fewer costs from blocking off important infrastructure people need. The Chinese did a good job building extra cities and then filling them up later, they think ahead. But I agree that it would be a waste of resources if Trump was doing it - he'd probably just sign some bills, get some press coverage and move on.

What is wrong with the current system?

I was rereading parts from 'Where's my flying car' and he points out that insurance costs for his light aircraft (made using 1970s technology because investment and development's been crippled) are roughly equal with car insurance. So logically, if most people with flying cars are rich clever people like him, (which they would be since flying cars are still going to be expensive), insurance costs and damage caused should be similar. It'd be less with a better regulatory system and more efficient control technology - excessive regulations mean that aircraft are so expensive many people build their own instead of buying off the shelf planes.

Horses were OK but cars were better and flying cars should be better still. It's like a better, cheaper helicopter.

Rural industries

Subsidizing and supporting industry can be helpful in the long run. If Korea didn't support its domestic car industry, how could they have developed one from scratch when they were so outclassed by the US in technology, market size and experience? If they stuck to Economics 101 Comparative Advantage Good, South Korea would still be an agrarian economy. And why did semiconductor production move to Taiwan and South Korea when the US invented the whole field? Support has to be done in the right ways of course but it's still a good idea. Big countries should have the full range of critical industries like steel, chemicals and so on. You don't want to put a giant steel mill in the heart of New York. I suppose Trump is also happy to develop oil and pipelines in rural areas, contra Biden. In principle it's possible to do this correctly but in practice?

Baby bonuses

Well what is the alternative? Mass migration unravels the nation. Human cloning is not well-developed. My favoured policy of social engineering and affirmative action for parents is not exactly popular. Do we just wait for AGI?

cities

Good points about economies of scale and so on, obstruction by the current status quo, and so on. I'd still have to be persuaded whether or not is sufficient to outweigh the infrastructure already built up in cities, but it now doesn't seem entirely pointless.

flying cars

Maybe that's true now, but if flying cars became normal, there would be a much fuller airspace. I would find it hard to believe that that would not adjust the insurance rates. If a sizable amount of the population owned flying vehicles, crashes and near misses would become much more likely. Of course, 3 dimensional space would help, but desired destinations would concentrate traffic, at least at beginnings and ends of flights. There's probably a stronger case for some usage of flying cars making sense than widespread usage.

Rural industries

That's a good point. I suppose that doesn't account for it needing to be rural, but I think you're right.

Baby bonuses

Yes, I think aiming to raise fertility would be good. There might be more effective options, though.

I think the policy recommendations and critiques found in pronatalist.org's FAQ might be worth looking into. (under "what pronatalist policies are most effective")

Among the things mentioned is more doing cultural things. A tax cut gives financial incentives, but doesn't necessarily convey the message it's trying to send on a cultural level very well.