Maxwell Tabarrok

The Offense-Defense Balance Rarely Changes

Some­thing Is Get­ting Harder To Find But It’s Not Ideas

• Maxwell Tabarrok 16 Jan 2023 16:08 UTC

  8 points

  on: Tyler Cowen AMA

  Many of the movements you are involved in and praise (e.g econ and EA) use online writing/​blogging to communicate and generate new ideas.

  Will this continue in recognizable form despite AIs surpassing human skill at writing? Are the young people who are investing in this skill learning how to use the hand powered loom in 1800?

In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty Is Worse Than You Think

Does the Ve­gas Sphere Mark the End of Mon­u­ment Stag­na­tion?

In­ter­land: The Coun­try In The Intersection

Did Medieval Peas­ants Have More Va­ca­tion Time Than Us?

En­light­en­ment Values in a Vuln­er­a­ble World

• Maxwell Tabarrok 12 May 2022 2:08 UTC

  4 points

  on: Why doesn’t progress seem to prop­a­gate?

  If you haven’t read it already, ‘Where’s my Flying Car’ is basically a direct answer to the question you pose here. Hall has scientific, technological, political, and cultural analyses of several possibly impactful technologies like flying cars, nuclear energy, nanotech, etc.

Amer­i­can Ac­cel­er­a­tion vs Development

We Need Ma­jor, But Not Rad­i­cal, FDA Reform

Surgery Works Well Without The FDA

Land Recla­ma­tion is in the 9th Cir­cle of Stag­na­tion Hell

Fer­til­ity as Metascience

Why Govern­ments Can’t be Trusted to Pro­tect the Long-run Future

• Maxwell Tabarrok 11 May 2022 20:29 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: James Rosen-Birch’s comment on: In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty Is Worse Than You Think

  I definitely agree that a bigger difference between original investment costs and copying costs makes patents more beneficial, but all of the criticisms I pointed out still apply. The Pharma industry spends billions on patent courts and lobbying. This has to be subtracted from the benefits that they provide, in addition to all the welfare losses from super expensive name-brand drugs.

  What do you think about using prizes or direct subsidies for high CAPEX projects instead of IP?
  
  In a more meta sense, I wonder if it is possible to have patents only for high CAPEX industries. It may be that the lobbying forces will inevitably push to expand the reach of patents, and one cannot separate the benefits of high CAPEX patents from the costs of low CAPEX ones.

The 2nd De­mo­graphic Transition

Claude vs GPT

Don’t En­dorse the Idea of Mar­ket Failure

When Should Copy­right Get Shorter?