Favorites November 8th 2022
The rest of the thread is analysis estimating future impact (including faster EV adoption), but these battery manufacturing investments are significantly more concrete.
The level of commitment to the cause of folks in Ukraine is inspiring. We really should be using every tool at our disposal to help them keep their independence. Ukraine also appears to be using this moment to actually reduce corruption in meaningful ways. I'm not often in agreement with Xi Jinping, but I'm happy to see a very his message in opposition to Russia's nuclear blackmail.
This looks good for YIMBY at the Mountain View level. As far as other items I followed Car Free JFK has been successful. And Fetterman beat Oz in Pennsylvania. Democrats doing great in Michigan. Trump backed candidates lost a bunch of competitive races, the main Republican doing well is DeSantis, despite Trump's attacks. So far Democrats are performing somewhat better than expected. Yglesias speculates that this improves Biden's chances for reelection, voters love a winner.
Threads
• Thread of data showing that upzoning in Auckland truly brought down rents over the last 6 years.
• Long thread getting into how Hunter Gatherers transitioned to farming, which happened in 7 different places on earth independently 5 to 7 thousand years ago. Author discusses and discards various hypotheses, and then dives deep on one item he believes explains it. TL;DR: increased seasonality due to Jupiter's gravitational pull!